Data Science Manager (Operations)

Salary: Competitive + Car Allowance + Bonus + Benefits!

Location: Hybrid working, home & 1-2 days a week in BCA Hook or BCA King's Cross

Working Hours: Monday - Friday, 40 hours

Job Status: Permanent

Who we are! The Constellation Automotive Group is the largest vertically integrated digital car marketplace in Europe, combining the leading digital brands across the segments of Consumer to Business (C2B), Business to Business (B2B) and Business to Consumer (B2C). Businesses in our group include household names such as cinch, We Buy Any Car, and Marshall Motor Group as well as industry leading British Car Auctions (BCA). Our Data Science function - now in its tenth year - sits across the Constellation Automotive Group and is at the forefront of providing data products and services that help underpin the success of these companies.

Our cross-group remit is broad with our models ranging from valuation and commercial pricing to marketing and personalisation, through to operational optimisation including stock selection, delivery route optimisation and vehicle refurbishment.

Now, this is where you fit in… As the Data Science Manager for our Operations team, you will lead a team dedicated to developing advanced models and algorithms that enhance operational efficiency, optimise vehicle movements and drive vehicle refurbishment. Your work will directly contribute to driving profitability across the organization each year, playing a critical role in our continued success. You will leverage our best-in-class framework to drive continuous innovation in these solutions, collaborating with the Head of Data Science to define the strategic direction for the Operations team in developing new cutting-edge models and methodologies.

The ideal candidate will be highly motivated by the opportunity to develop their team through coaching and mentoring, while also being willing to be hands-on, working with our Senior Staff Engineer to provide technical leadership to the team. You’ll make use of your strong technical understanding of various mathematical / combinatorial optimisation approaches (linear/integer programming, scheduling optimisation, search optimisation, etc) to deliver new solutions to operational challenges. In return you’ll receive coaching and mentoring to grow as a people manager. Opportunity to have a clear and tangible impact across a group of businesses. And you’ll be supported by our experienced MLOps and Data Engineering teams, allowing you more time to focus on model development, research and the implementation of new novel algorithmic approaches.

Key Responsibilities:

• Lead the Data Science Operations Team in ongoing improvements to the team’s products and envision new solutions to address and prescribe for identified business priorities.
• Manage, coach and mentor a team of data scientists, ensuring they achieve their growth goals and deliver anticipated business outcomes.
• Engage and build strong relationships with stakeholders across the group to understand operational challenges, develop new solutions, communicate progress and promote the use of developed models and algorithms.
• Own the roadmap for the Data Science Operations team, agreeing priorities with stakeholders and the Head of Data Science, enabling the team to deliver against agreed targets.
• Work closely with the Machine Learning Operations team to deliver products to end users, leveraging and contributing to established engineering standards and best practices.
• Work collaboratively with the Insight & Analytics and Data Engineering teams to integrate model outputs into our data platform, ensuring their effective use in analysis and reporting.
• Identify and drive improvements in our product lifecycle and machine learning pipelines, enhancing efficiency and enabling the team to innovate rapidly.
• Explain the implications of models and model insights to business stakeholders and external customers in an easy-to-understand way.

Knowledge and Experience:

Required Skills:

• Experience engineering products to a high standard using Python (PuLP, ortools, SciPy.optimize) or similar programming tool.
• Experience implementing optimisation methodologies including Linear & Integer Programming (LP, ILP, MILP), Graph Theory and Network Optimisation, Scheduling & Search Algorithms and Simulation Approaches (Monte Carlo, Markov-Chain, Discrete Event Simulation, etc).
• Excellent team management skills to lead, motivate and grow a team who are geographically dispersed.
• Comfortable using a multi-platform stack to deliver products (Databricks, Azure ML Studio, Azure and Snowflake, SageMaker, AWS).
• Ability to take ownership of a broad product-set and drive forward the delivery of new products and product features.
• Strong ability to communicate complex concepts clearly and concisely to technical and non-technical audiences of various levels of seniority.
• Proven ability to manage stakeholders and excellent ability to gather, develop, prioritise and deliver customer requirements.
• Experience with continuous integration tools, such as Azure DevOps Pipelines or GitHub Actions, for automating reporting and model deployment.
• Strong attention to detail, well organised and proactive in identifying and owning issues as they arise.
• Experience of working in an Agile framework is a plus.

We’ve put everything in place to ensure you thrive. Competitive salaries, strong core values and an excellent benefits package that includes:

• Company Pension Scheme
• An Employee Assistance Programme
• Enhanced maternity, paternity, and adoption leave
• Access to trained Mental Health First Aiders
• And so much more…

As the automotive industry changes, we’re changing with it - putting our people in the front seat for the journey. We’re the number one in what we do for a reason and that’s because of the people we have on our teams. If you want to be a part of a business like this; unrivalled, exciting and appreciative of the work you do, join BCA.