Head of Data Science, Chat Pillar in London

About the Company

At Cleo, we're not just building another fintech app. We're embarking on a mission to fundamentally change humanity's relationship with money. Imagine a world where everyone, regardless of background or income, has access to a hyper‑intelligent financial advisor in their pocket. That's the future we're creating. Cleo is a rare success story: a profitable, fast‑growing unicorn with over $300 million in ARR and growing over 2x year‑over‑year. This isn't just a job; it's a chance to join a team of brilliant, driven individuals who are passionate about making a real difference. We have an exceptionally high bar for talent, seeking individuals who are not only at the top of their field but also embody our culture of collaboration and positive impact.

If you’re driven by complex challenges that push your expertise, the chance to shape something truly transformative, and the potential to share in Cleo’s success as we scale, while growing alongside a company that’s scaling fast, this might be your perfect fit.

About the Role

We’re hiring a Head of Data Science to own analytics and experimentation for a product pillar at Cleo. You’ll lead a team of 4–5 product data scientists embedded in cross‑functional squads and partner closely with Product, Engineering, Design, and ML leadership to shape what we build. This is a player‑coach role: you’ll set the bar for analytics craft across the pillar and stay hands‑on with high‑impact analysis when decisions need to move fast.

You’ll be the analytics leader for the AI Financial Assistant pillar, with a direct line of sight to engagement, revenue, and product roadmap. Your team’s work will directly influence how we acquire, activate, convert, and retain users, improve payback and LTV, and scale Cleo to millions more people sustainably.

What You’ll Be Doing

• Pillar leadership: roadmaps and decision‑making
• Partner with pillar leaders to build a discovery and experimentation roadmap across acquisition, onboarding, conversion, and retention.
• Define success metrics, metric trees, and guardrails so squads make consistent, data‑driven decisions.
• Support and challenge teams during OKR planning, ensuring initiatives map to clear metrics, realistic targets, and understood trade‑offs.
• Provide visibility to senior leadership on pillar performance: what’s driving key metric movement, where the biggest opportunities are, and what we’ll do next.

Team leadership: coaching and high performance

• Line‑manage product data scientists, supporting performance, development, and career growth.
• Ensure analysts are focused on the highest‑impact work and delivering against pillar priorities.
• Coach on stakeholder management, structured problem solving, storytelling, experimentation, and commercial thinking.
• Raise the bar for analytics craft through feedback, pairing, templates/playbooks, and lightweight standards that improve quality and speed.

Hands‑on analytics and experimentation

• Personally deliver high‑impact analysis that shapes pillar roadmaps and investment decisions.
• Deep dive into key metrics to understand trends, root causes, and differences across products and segments.
• Own the experimentation program in your pillar: ensure tests are robust, interpretable, and aligned to strategy. Maintain a test roadmap, prevent collisions, and resolve cross‑team conflicts.
• Turn insights into shipped change: align owners and timelines, remove blockers, and close the loop on outcomes.

Data foundations

• Champion high‑quality instrumentation, clear metric definitions, and data hygiene.
• Work with Analytics Engineering to prioritise modelling needs and ensure the right datasets and definitions exist for your pillar.
• Build and oversee dashboards/tools that help squads and leaders act on metrics without always relying on analysts.

About You

• Must‑have: 7+ years in product data science / analytics with a track record of improving user and commercial outcomes.
• Proven experience in product analytics (e.g., onboarding/activation, conversion funnels, retention) in consumer products.
• Experience leading a high‑performing team (at least 2–3 data scientists/analysts; managing a mix of senior and mid‑level is a plus).
• Strong influence and communication: tell a clear, structured story with data and land insights at the right time to shape decisions. Set/defend targets with senior stakeholders and create broad alignment.
• Strong experimentation skills: designed and interpreted large‑scale A/B tests, understand common pitfalls and best practices, and guide others.
• Strong SQL and Python skills, and comfort working directly with modern analytics tools and workflows.
• Work end‑to‑end: defining tracking and metric definitions through to analysis and decision support.

Nice‑to‑have

• Experience in fintech, personal finance, or high‑growth consumer subscription products.
• Experience setting up lightweight analytics standards (metric definitions, experiment reviews, decision frameworks) across multiple squads.

Interview Process

• Recruiter Interview (30 mins)
• Leadership & Communication Interview (60 mins)
• Technical Interview (60 mins)
• Whiteboard Interview (60 mins)
• Final Interview with the Hiring Manager (45 mins)

Benefits

• A competitive compensation package (base + equity) with 3 annual reviews, aligned to our termly OKR planning cycles.
• Head of (L5) banding: £120,000 - £145,000 UK, Hybrid / £110,400 - £133,400 UK, Remote
• Work at one of the fastest‑growing tech startups, backed by top VC firms, Balderton & EQT Ventures
• A clear progression plan. We want you to keep growing. That means trying new things, leading others, challenging the status quo and owning your impact. Always with our complete support.
• Flexibility. We can’t fight for the world’s financial health if we’re not healthy ourselves. We work with everyone to make sure they have the balance they need to do their best work.
• Work where you work best. We’re a globally distributed team. If you live in London we have a hybrid approach, we’d love you to spend one day a week or more in our beautiful office. If you’re outside of London, we’ll encourage you to spend a couple of days with us a few times per year. And we’ll cover your travel costs, naturally.
• Company‑wide performance reviews every 4 months
• Generous pay increases for high‑performing team members
• Equity top‑ups awarded across all levels in performance reviews
• 25 days annual leave a year + public holidays (+ an additional day for every year you spend at Cleo, up to 30 days)
• 1 month paid sabbatical after 4 years at Cleo
• 6% employer‑matched pension in the UK
• Private Medical Insurance via Vitality, dental cover, and life assurance
• Online mental health support via Spill
• Enhanced parental leave
• Workplace Nursery Scheme
• Paid for access to multiple AI platforms (ChatGPT, Codex, Claude)
• Access to the latest AI coding models
• Pick your kit - choose between a Windows or an Apple computer
• Regular socials and activities, online and in‑person
• And many more!

Welcoming Everyone

We strongly encourage applications from people of colour, the LGBTQ+ community, people with disabilities, neurodivergent people, parents, carers, and people from lower socio‑economic backgrounds. If there’s anything we can do to accommodate your specific situation, please let us know.