Senior Data Scientist, Fraud - Remote Working (UK)

We are Zego - a commercial motor insurance provider that powers opportunities for businesses, from entire fleets of vehicles to self-employed drivers and riders. We combine best-in-class technology with sophisticated data sources to offer insurance products that save businesses time and money.

Since our inception, we have believed that the problem with traditional insurance is that it holds businesses back. It’s too expensive and time consuming, and it no longer suits businesses who use vehicles to earn money. Our products represent a solution to this problem for businesses based across the UK, Europe and beyond.

So far, we have raised over $200 million in funding and we were the first UK insurtech to be valued at over $1 billion. We were also the first to be awarded our own insurance license and recently won Tech Company of the Year 2020.

At Zego, we are proud to say we have a diverse and inclusive team, unified by our shared values and mission. Our people are the most important part of our story and everybody at Zego, no matter their role, has an integral part to play.

Overview of the Data Science team

The mission of the Data Science team at Zego is to leverage novel data sources and modern computational tools to deliver value through data-driven insights, personalised pricing and insurance product innovation. It is a growing team, responsible for all the aspects related to data, including data sourcing, cleaning, extraction, problem formulation, implementing and testing models, productionising new exciting tools and algorithms and designing scalable tools, practices, and systems to support data science analysis and deployment. The team partners closely with Product, Pricing, Engineering and wider Commercial and Business functions to find the best ways to incorporate statistical models and evidence-based decision making into Zego’s products and processes.

Purpose of the role

The Data Science team is looking for an experienced Data Scientist to lead Zego’s efforts in combating fraud. Your job will entail diving through mountains of data and extracting insights to help us understand the ever-changing environment of fraud, claims and abuse. This is a dynamic role where you will work closely with Product, Pricing, Engineering, Claims and Risk teams to develop data-driven insurance claims automation and fraud detection solutions.

Sitting at the heart of Zego’s industry leading data team, you will have the full support of Zego’s exceptional engineering, data and claims teams to develop processes, models and tooling to identify fraud and reduce financial risk to the company. As a key member of the Data Science team you will contribute to Zego growing machine learning efforts, which includes data sourcing and feature engineering, building and deploying production ML models as well as model monitoring and alerting.

The role is ideally suited to a candidate with previous experience in risk, fraud or compliance analytics. You will be working on a variety of projects involving signal processing, machine learning, automation and product development giving you a wide range of exposure and plenty of chances to develop as a data professional. You will be given the support and backing you need to develop your skills, including on the job training, L&D budget, and a personal career development plan.

About the role

• You will dive into the heart of Zego R&D efforts and help to build market leading fraud and claims analytics capabilities.
• You will be responsible for partnering with key stakeholders to develop evidence-driven solutions to important claims and fraud problems.
• You will apply your data expertise to surfacing key insights that will help drive decision-making, and develop data tools that will improve our ability to fight financial crime.
• You will become an expert regarding Zego’s potential risks related to fraud and apply relevant ML approaches to address these problems in impactful ways.
• You will work with engineering teams to integrate new fraud-related data sources into Zego’s systems and processes.
• You will creatively leverage new and existing data to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of our decision-making infrastructure.
• You will support the delivery of predictive analytics and models to allow the development of new fraud management solutions and better understand fraud control strategies.
• You will become a data subject-matter-expert in the evaluation and development of new fraud systems tools and their implementation.
• You will conduct pre- and post-deployment impact analysis to quantify the success of new strategies and implementations.
• You will assist stakeholders to articulate their fraud system strategy requirements, guiding and challenging where appropriate.
• You will proactively identify opportunities for using ML, work on uncertainties, and drive projects end to end independently with a focus on results
• You will help to standardize and automate the analytics pipeline for use across the pricing organisation.
• You will communicate data-led recommendations to senior stakeholders, both written and orally.
• You will champion a data-driven approach as you partner with stakeholders of different seniority showcasing your inclination as an outstanding individual contributor and develop into other senior roles.
• You will use modern tools and methods and techniques to promote automation in Zego’s analytics operations.
• You will constantly generate new research ideas, building a case and presenting your findings to propel capability forward.
• You must be willing to embrace change and show flexibility in assignments and the work environment.

About you

• You have BSc/BA in Mathematics, Statistics, Engineering, Computer Science or similarly quantitative disciplines.
• You have 3+ years of experience in Data Science, covering areas such as anomaly detection, predictive analytics, recommender systems, and productionising solutions.
• You have previous experience in the risk, fraud or compliance analytics.
• You are strongly proficient working with and querying structured data using SQL.
• You are highly experienced in Python (or R) applied to data analysis and predictive modelling and can write robust and scalable code.
• You are well-versed in modern machine learning tools and libraries such as Scikit-learn, Tensorflow, Caffe2, PyTorch and Theano.
• You have experience and enthusiasm for reproducible research techniques including version control (geg. Git & Github etc.).
• You have outstanding eye to detail and take care to make sure that your work is accurate and effective.
• You have the ability to present complex information in an easily digestible format, appropriate for the audience.
• You are a lifelong learner; as technologies and techniques are constantly evolving, you are proactively pushing yourself to develop your skills and knowledge.
• You are resilient to change and use a holistic view of the business to ensure your goals are aligned and your work has impact.

Bonus points:

• You have a graduate degree in a highly quantitative discipline such as Applied Mathematics, Physics or Computer Science.
• You have previous experience in a fast-growing scale-up.
• You have previous experience in the insurance industry.
• You are comfortable using cloud infrastructure as code to build data pipelines and model deployment services. AWS experience in particular is a plus.
• You are proficient with Docker and Kubenetes.