Senior ML Ops Engineer in Bexhill-on-Sea

Welcome to Hastings Direct. We’re a digital insurance provider with ambitious plans to become the best and biggest in the UK market. We’ve made huge investments in our pricing and data capabilities over the past few years, along with nurturing our 4Cs culture. We provide insurance for over four million customers, but we know there’s even bigger opportunity out there – our Pricing, Data and Analytics community value curiosity, collaboration and constructive challenge.

Great pricing is built on trust, innovation and precision, so our aim is to ensure customers receive a fair and accurate price based on their individual risk, supporting fair outcomes, while delivering sustainable and profitable growth for our company. Pricing is more than just a number – it’s a strategic capability. At the heart of Hastings is deep risk insight – continually improving how we assess, segment and price risk through data and analytics.

As part of Hasting’s ongoing commitment to Data Science & Modelling to power our growth ambitions, we need experienced people to help us deliver our objectives. This effort has the full support of the business, benefits from a state-of-the-art tech stack and inputs from the entire Pricing, Data and Analytics community at Hastings, and a network of data scientists and machine learning engineers across the Market Pricing team & beyond.

To build upon the foundations and success of our Market Pricing team, we are looking for an experienced individual with strong programming skills and a passion for data to lead the ML Ops team. This role is key to advancing and maintaining our technical market price models, which are critical to the next phase of our commercial strategy.

As a Senior ML Ops Engineer in the Market Pricing team, you will be reporting to the Head of Market Pricing, working closely with the Motor and Home Market Modelling teams, stakeholders across all Pricing teams, Data and ML Engineering teams. You will play a pivotal role in the deployment and maintenance of machine learning models and data science solutions to extract the crucial predictive insight that underpins our pricing strategies and helps maintain our competitive edge. You will provide strategic guidance and tooling to benefit the wider Pricing, Data and Analytics community and support data-driven innovation.

How you will make a difference:

• Building reusable, maintainable, automated, and innovative processes and pipelines.
• Stretching the team’s capabilities in Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and use of Cloud technologies.
• Working cross-functionally with the wider Pricing, Data and Analytics teams to develop the market pricing data landscape.
• Advocating for data science and software development best practices.
• Leading, supporting, and mentoring junior colleagues.
• Engaging commercial stakeholders to gather detailed business requirements and coordinating project activities.

What we’re looking for:

• Proven track record of delivering commercial value using supervised machine learning techniques.
• Advanced Python programmer, and experience with data manipulation and analysis libraries (e.g., NumPy, Pandas, scikit-learn).
• Advanced knowledge of data science technologies including tooling and platforms.
• Advanced SQL knowledge.
• Advanced in Git.
• Ability to drive projects from initiation to completion.
• Keen interest in emerging Machine Learning techniques.
• Experience with Cloud deployments (e.g. Azure/AWS/GCP).
• Ability to work cross-functionally with other technical teams.

Interview Process:

• Recruiter screening call.
• 1st Round – Intro call with Hiring manager.
• 2nd Round – Case study round followed by call with Hiring leader.

What we will give you:

Join us and you’ll find a different way of doing things. We call it the 4Cs. We focus on getting it right for our colleagues, customers, company and community. As one of our colleagues, you’ll be helping to drive our growth, so in return, we’ll give you all the support, training and development you need. Not to mention plenty of recognition and rewards, and the scope to voice your ideas and put them into practice.

As a Disability Confident employer, we’re committed to ensuring our recruitment processes are fully inclusive – what this means to you is if you’re applying for a job with us, you’ll have fair access to support and adjustments throughout your recruitment journey. We also welcome applications through the Disability Confident Scheme (DCS). For more information on the DCS, please visit our inclusive business page on our careers website.

Benefits:

• Flexible working – we champion a flexible hybrid working approach.
• Competitive bonus scheme - all colleagues are eligible for our annual 4Cs performance bonus.
• Physical wellbeing – Hastings pays for you to receive private medical Insurance (PMI).
• Financial wellbeing – providing you with 4x your salary with our life assurance cover, income protection at no extra cost, and matched pension contributions up to 10%.
• Mental wellbeing programme – we have the thrive mental health app, our colleague assistance programme available 24/7, and support groups.
• 27 days annual leave + bank holidays, with the option to buy or sell one of your weeks.
• Access to our health care cash back plans, dental plans, discounted health assessments, Cycle to work and tech schemes, and social events throughout the year.

Hastings Group is an equal opportunities employer which means we treat people fairly. We welcome applications from all suitably skilled persons regardless of their gender, age, race, disability, ethnic background, religion/belief, sexual orientation, gender reassignment or marital/family status. Please also note that we have a thorough referencing process, which includes credit and criminal record checks. At Hastings Direct, we’re committed to creating an inclusive environment where everyone has the opportunity to succeed. If you require any reasonable adjustments during the recruitment process, we encourage you to be open with us.