Senior Data Scientist - Neural Net Forecasting

About the role

This is a hands-on position where you will need to leverage your analytical mindset to find solutions to complex problems. As a Senior Data Scientist, you will need to understand difficult business problems and prototype solutions with minimal support.

A core component of the role is applying, modifying, and designing algorithms and mathematical models to solve business problems using big data architectures (Hadoop, Spark, Cloud). In this role, your primary focus will be forecasting and related statistical or probabilistic modelling, with a strong emphasis on rigorous evaluation against robust baselines, careful validation, and scalable deployment.

Our Data Scientists must be able to validate, document and present the modelling process and performance, as well as communicate complex solutions in a clear, understandable way to non-experts.

Data Scientists are also responsible for promoting data science across Tesco and representing Tesco across the external Data Science community.

Finally, as a Senior Data Scientist, you will be expected to drive innovation and take ownership of aspects of project development, support the Lead Data Scientist and Product Manager in managing relationships with business stakeholders, and mentor and supervise junior team members and interns.

You will be responsible for
• Designing and improving forecasting and statistical modelling solutions for large-scale retail and business time series.
• Blending data from multiple sources to explain historic behaviour and generate forward-looking predictions and scenarios.
• Building robust training, validation and backtesting pipelines, including time-aware evaluation, leakage controls and stability checks.
• Applying best practices for productionisation, including monitoring, retraining strategies, and performance and cost considerations.
• Collaborating closely with engineering, product and business partners to ensure models are reliable, scalable and deliver measurable business value.

You will need

We are looking for ambitious individuals with a mix of statistics, programming skills and familiarity with time series analysis or broader forecasting and probabilistic/statistical modelling. A proven track record of designing and modifying advanced algorithms and applying them to large data sets is essential. Some project and stakeholder management experience is preferred.

An ideal candidate will have a scientific mindset with the ability to ask the right questions, as well as answer them. A strong numerical higher degree in a mathematical, scientific, engineering, economics or computer science discipline is preferable, as well as a solid understanding of mathematics and statistical principles.

Meaningful academic or industrial work involving forecasting or probabilistic/statistical modelling is required. This includes experience blending data from different sources to explain historic behaviour and produce forward-looking predictions and scenarios.

We particularly value experience in modelling risk or volatility, econometrics, or other types of modelling that support strategic, multi-year decision making. Experience in areas such as scenario modelling, uncertainty quantification, causal analysis, or long-range planning is a plus.

Finally, strong programming skills are essential (Python is preferred) as well as familiarity with software engineering best practices (such as version control, unit testing and CI/CD) and big data and cloud technologies (PySpark preferred). Experience developing and deploying models in cloud environments is a strong advantage.

Whats in it for you?

We’re all about the little helps. That’s why we make sure our Tesco colleague benefits package takes care of you – both in and out of work.  to…