Data Scientist

We are currently looking to recruit an experienced Data Scientist into the Data Science team. The Data Science team sits in the Data & Analytics department and works alongside the Business Insights Analysts and Data and Frontend Engineers.

Our Data Scientists work on a diverse range of projects to solve key business problems, enable data-driven decision making and optimise and automate processes. In practice, this means exploiting data of heterogeneous nature (e.g., financial, web logs, marketing, behavioural, course content) to: i) scope, develop, productionise, deploy, monitor and improve scalable and automated data-science products, eventually living in a cloud environment; ii) produce self-contained statistical models and ad-hoc analyses; iii) set up and carry out experiments.

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, independence and career growth.

Our Technology stack

We use Snowflake as our main data warehouse and dbt as the tool of choice for data transformations. Python is the main programming language used for our Data-Science products and we mainly use Pyspark and AWS cloud computational and automation resources to enable their scalability and automation. We recently started managing our Data-Science infrastructure with Terraform. We use Git and Github for distributed version control and source code management.

Key responsibilities of the role;

As a Data Scientist in this role you will be involved in the entire Data Science workflow. Your main responsibilities include:

• Identifying adequate data-driven solutions to business problems that comply with GDPR and other regulatory requirements and meet company’s and other relevant ethical standards
• Singling out and extracting suitable data, understanding their provenance and assessing their intrinsic selection (but not only) biased
• Making data ready for feature engineering and scientific analysis
• Applying Machine Learning and Statistical techniques to develop, productionise, deploy, monitor and improve Data Science products (e.g. course recommendation engine, building data science cloud-based infrastructure)
• Understanding and interpreting model outputs and scientific results and communicating them with an audience-tailored approach

Requirements

• MSc/MEng in a quantitative field (Data Science, Machine Learning, Computer Science, Mathematics, Physical Science, Engineering, Economics or similar) or equivalent relevant work experience
• 2-3 years experience designing and developing machine learning solutions to solve business problems in particular in the domain of product & marketing personalisation and customer value & experience journey analysis
• Strong creative problem solving and adaptability skills
• Ability to work independently, to self-manage time and priorities and to collaborate within a cross-functional team environment
• Significant experience with mathematical, statistical (frequentist and/or bayesian) and machine learning techniques (e.g., supervised and unsupervised learning, recommendation engines, time series)
• Experience with identifying, selecting and manipulating suitable large data sets and preparing them for scientific analysis
• Good working knowledge of SQL/PostgreSQL
• Excellent knowledge in Python, including experience with packages such as Pandas, NumPy, SciPy, Scikit-learn, Matplotlib, Seaborn
• 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
• Right to work in the UK (we cannot sponsor visas)
  

Desired qualifications

• PhD in a quantitative field (Data Science, Machine Learning, Computer Science, Mathematics, Physical Science, Engineering, Economics or similar
• Previous commercial experience with recommendation engines, and/or unsupervised clustering for customer segmentation and/or time-series forecasting
• Working knowledge of TensorFlow/Keras/PyTorch or similar frameworks
• Working knowledge of reinforcement learning and/or neural networks
• Working knowledge of Natural Language Processing techniques
• Working knowledge of and previous experience with causal inference
• Knowledge of Graph theory
• Previous experience productionising machine learning models on cloud platforms including distributed computing (e.g., PySpark)
• Previous experience with web application development, especially with Django, Flask, Dash or similar Python web frameworks
• Experience with BI & Analytics visualisation tools, ideally Looker and LookML

Benefits

• Competitive Salary
• 28 days holiday (plus 8 days public holiday)
• Buy & sell up to 5 days holiday
• Westfield Healthcare Cash Plan
• Free access to Calm app
• Dedicated personal learning & development budget
• Charity day (volunteer for a charity of your choice)
• Cycle to work scheme
• Season Ticket loan
• Flexible working environment/hours
• Pension (4% employer / employee contribution)
• Perkbox
  

ABOUT FUTURELEARN

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 previously cost, travel or admission requirements would have made study impossible.

FutureLearn was founded 8 years ago by The Open University, with the purpose of transforming access to education. Our mission is to ride the wave of these trends, and meet the needs of the professional lifelong learner across the globe. With new investment from the SEEK group, FutureLearn is now looking to expand globally, focusing on providing credible and valued lifelong learning pathways to professional learners, anywhere, any time from a mix of institutional and industry partners.

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.

Please note this role will be a remote role whilst FutureLearn's office is closed. Once the office is open again this role will be a full time, office based role.

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.

No recruitment agents please.

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 as a result 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.

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