Data Scientist

BACKGROUND

Higher education is being rapidly disrupted by digitisation, globalisation and industry moving into the educational space. At the same time, people’s job security is at risk from rapidly evolving industries, robotics & AI, increasing demand for up-to-date technical, data, digital skills, and shorter job spans. Increasingly we are all transforming into lifelong learners, looking to upskill, reskill or entertain ourselves via effective educational content that provides quality, credentialed and recognised outcomes. In emerging markets, the internet is accelerating this trend and opening up access to educational products from universities or institutions thousands of miles away, where cost, travel or admission requirements would have previously made study impossible. FutureLearn was founded in 2012 by the Open University, with the purpose of channeling these trends and transforming access to lifelong education.

As part of FutureLearn, you will be able to work within a stimulating, multidisciplinary, inclusive and diverse working environment that promotes collaboration, teamwork (AGILE framework), personal initiatives and career growth.

ABOUT THE ROLE

We are currently looking to recruit an experienced Data Scientist. This is a unique opportunity to join a budding Data Science team at an exciting time in FutureLearn as we further grow and move towards a new and personalized product and marketing strategy.

As a Data Scientist, you will work on a diverse range of projects to solve key business problems, enable data-driven decision making and optimise and automate processes. You will be involved in the entire Data Science workflow. In practice, this means exploiting data of heterogeneous nature (financial, web logs, marketing, behavioural, course content) to scope, develop and deploy data-science products as well as producing self-contained statistical models and ad-hoc analyses to create business insights.

FutureLearn has made significant investments into its data pipeline to enable fast, easy and scalable access to our data. Our data stack consists of Stitch, Snowflake, dbt and Looker. Python is the main programming language used for our Data-Science products and we mainly use Pyspark and AWS cloud tools to enable their scalability and automation.

The Data Science team sits in the Data & Analytics Department and works alongside the Business Insights Analysts and Data Engineers.

REQUIREMENTS

• 2+ years experience designing and developing data science and machine learning solutions to solve business problems within the domain of product & marketing personalisation and customer value & experience journey analysis
• Bachelor’s/MSc/PhD in a quantitative discipline (Data Science, Machine Learning, Computer Science, Mathematics, Engineering or similar) or equivalent relevant work experience
• Excellent knowledge in Python, including experience with packages such as Pandas, NumPy, SciPy, Scikit-learn, Matplotlib, Seaborn and good working knowledge of SQL/PostgreSQL
• Strong creative problem-solving skills and ability to work independently and to effectively collaborate within a cross-functional team environment
• Experience with statistical and machine learning techniques
• Experience of development and deployment of data science solutions within cloud environments (AWS, GCP, Azure)
• Knowledgeable in version control systems and hosting/sharing platforms such as Git/GitHub
• Experienced in communicating complex solutions in a clear and understandable way to both experts and non-experts.
• Ongoing desire to upskill yourself

BENEFITS

• Competitive salary based on experience and qualification
• 28 days holiday (plus 8 days public holiday)
• Buy & sell up to 5 days holiday
• Charity day (volunteer for a charity of your choice)
• Cycle to work scheme, and showers & secure bike parking in the office
• Season Ticket loan
• Flexible working environment/hours
• Pension (4% employer / employee contribution)
• OU Staff Fee Course Waiver Programme
• Great coffee, teas, fruit and daily breakfast (once remote working is over)
• Perkbox
• Personal training budget

ABOUT FUTURELEARN

FutureLearn is a leading social learning platform with over 10 million users globally. FutureLearn uses design, technology and partnerships to create enjoyable, credible and flexible short online courses, microcredentials, as well as undergraduate and postgraduate degrees, with a strong social learning USP. It partners with over a quarter of the world’s top universities, as well as organisations such as Accenture, the British Council, Raspberry Pi and Health Education England. It’s also involved in government-backed initiatives to address skills gaps such as The Institute of Coding and the National Centre for Computing Education.

FutureLearners live and breathe the company values and have a strong connection with our purpose, to transform access to education. We offer lots of flexibility, competitive benefits and a cool work environment. At FutureLearn, we look after each other.

APPLICATIONS

Please use our online form by pressing 'Apply for this job' below, including your CV and a cover letter telling us why you'd like to come work with us.

RECRUITMENT PROCESS

Please contact jobs@futurelearn.com if you require any reasonable adjustments or alterations to be made, to support you through the recruitment process.

DIVERSITY STATEMENT

We value all the great benefits that diversity brings and encourage everyone to bring their whole self at work, regardless of gender, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, age or disability.

COVID19

We encourage freelancers and people who have been made redundant because of COVID-19 to apply for opportunities at FutureLearn. We believe that in these difficult times, good employers have to rise to the occasion and play their part in the community. At FutureLearn, we take care of each other.