Data Scientist in Belfast

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Please note this position is a hybrid role, with 2 days a week on-site at our Belfast offices.

The Team

We are expanding our team at the leading edge of data science & analytics, and we are looking for a dynamic, inquisitive individual to help us grow our expertise. We want a collaborative individual to help further enhance our data practice, working to turn research and experimentation into actual beneficial outcomes for our customers and business. Our Data Science team leads on exploring new insights from our data that benefit Aflac’s customers, providing the building blocks for new products, benefits, and offerings within the supplemental health insurance industry. The team is involved with data discovery, analytics and model development which contributes to the consolidation and enrichment of our existing data. If you have a passion for Data Science, this is a rare opportunity to use your expertise to help shape the ongoing success of this team. Working on some of the biggest problems for the company, the team operates with the freedom to explore, develop, and learn new insights. These are used to prototype, pilot and launch new products to drive decision making and ultimately create a better experience for our customers. As part of this team, you will bring your experience in data science to turn these ideas into reality.

The Role

We want an open-minded, free-thinking, collaborative Data Scientist who enjoys solving complex business problems and providing data driven solutions to our business partners. We are looking for a person who is self-motivated and driven to look at problems through a different lens, diving deep to challenge the status quo and educate leadership on the power behind the information which insurance companies hold.

What you'll be doing:

• Be curious, have a questioning mindset and be part of a team who find new insights and extract business value from our data.
• Freedom to experiment from conception to prototype to production.
• Working with in-house engineering teams and third parties to iterate and test model assumptions.
• Engaging with stakeholders to define problems and identify solutions, bringing them along on the journey with you.
• Review, evaluate and communicate modelling outputs and results to team, leadership, and stakeholders to ensure these are well understood and incorporated into business processes.
• Uses best practices and processes to develop statistical, machine learning techniques to build models that address business needs and to improve the accuracy of our data and data-driven decisions.
• Develop strong working relationships with data engineers to maximize the outcomes of the team’s research and the impact this can have on our customers often using visual tools to demonstrate your findings.
• Solve complex problems in a collaborative and open learning environment.
• Listening to the inputs of others, collaborating on the best solution that maximizes the value to the policyholder, without ego or prejudice.

What you need to have:

Below is an overview of the skills and experience we are looking for, but remember, don’t rule yourself out if you don’t have everything on the list – it’s your intellect and your attitude we’re after.

• Bachelor's degree. Comparable commercial experience may also be considered.
• Good understanding of research & product development.
• Familiar with many different data sources and types.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
• Experience or the willingness to learn any new technologies.
• Experience programming in Python.
• Experience/Knowledge in Machine Learning.
• Good understanding of the principled evaluation of ML models.
• MSc or PhD in a STEM discipline.
• Experience with Generative AI.
• Familiar with cloud-based technologies (AWS, Azure or GCP).
• Experience working and collaborating in teams particularly in the data space.
• Experience of stakeholder engagement.
• Experience of deploying, testing & monitoring ML models in production.

What's in it for you?

We offer great personal development opportunities and roles with breadth, depth of scope and impact.

• Annual Bonus.
• 35 days holiday – you choose when to use it, not to be determined by ‘when the banks close!’
• Company pension.
• Private Medical Cover.
• Cycle to Work Scheme.
• Amazing onsite facilities including a dedicated health and wellbeing room, dedicated desk, free vending machines, endless caffeine, and unrivalled views of Belfast!

So that’s us. Thanks for taking the time to read this far. We look forward to hearing from you if you fancy joining a tech innovation company with the agility of a start-up and the stability of a Fortune 500 U.S. company. Aflac NI is an equal opportunities employer.