Data Scientist

Contract to hire position with a major investment firm. Hybrid, 3 days/week in Newark, NJ.

Description:

Are you interested in building capabilities that enable the organization with innovation, speed, agility, scalability, and efficiency? When you join our organization at
*** you will unlock an exciting and impactful career—all while growing your skills and advancing your profession at one of the world’s leading financial services institutions.

• Provide deep technical leadership to a portfolio of high‑impact data science initiatives involving sales and advisor experience. Identify optimal data, models, training, and testing techniques required for successful product delivery, and remove complex technical impediments.
• Leverage experience to identify new opportunities where data science and AI can improve experiences, gain efficiencies, and generate sales.
• Ensure best‑in‑class model development.
  • Communicate clearly and concisely—both in writing and verbally—regarding all facets of model design and development.
  • Continuously look for insights in models and generate new ideas for improvement.
• Apply continuous integration and deployment best practices, including test automation and monitoring, to ensure successful deployment of ML models and application code on ***’s AI/ML platform.
• Embed deep understanding of relevant and emerging technologies into daily work and foster learning and innovation.
• Work on significant and unique issues where analysis requires evaluation of intangible variables that may impact future concepts, products, or technologies.
• Familiarity with Python, SQL, AWS, and JIRA.
• Familiarity with LLMs, deployment of LLMs, RAG, Lang Chain, Lang Graph, and Agentic AI concepts.

• Applied Statistics, Computer Science, Engineering, or related field with a focus on machine learning, AI, and LLMs.
• Junior‑category industry experience developing and delivering advanced quantitative, AI/ML, analytical, and statistical solutions.
• Ability to lead a small team with minimal guidance and effectively leverage diverse ideas for AI product delivery.
• Ability to influence business stakeholders and drive adoption of AI/ML solutions.
• Experience with agile development methodologies, TDD, and product management.
• Knowledge of business concepts, tools, and processes needed for sound decisions in the company’s context.
• Demonstrated ability to mentor and manage a data science team—anticipating risks, bottlenecks, and proactively taking action.
• Excellent problem‑solving, communication, collaboration, and stakeholder management skills.
• Deep expertise with one or more of the following:
  • Machine Learning and AI: theory, mathematics, traditional models (unsupervised, XGBoost, etc.), and Large Language Models (OpenAI, Claude).
  • Model Deployment: lifecycle, CI/CD/CT pipelines (Jenkins, Cloud Bees, Harness), A/B testing, AWS Sage Maker, and newer AWS/Azure Agentic AI infrastructure products.
  • Data Acquisition and Transformation: APIs, SQL, Python, and visualization.
  • Database Management Systems: structure, design, schemas, and relationships.
  • Data Analysis and Insights: statistical methods, pattern detection, and trend analysis.
  • Programming
    
    Languages:
    
    Python and SQL.

Payrate: 55 - 65/hr