Principal Data Scientist in Royal Leamington Spa

Actively seeking a Principal or Lead Data Scientist, ready to step up into a snr leadership role. Shape and guide the DS function, setting the strategy in partnership with the snr leadership team. Lead high-impact modelling, experimentation, and productionised ML to understand key business performance, behaviour and customer market trends.

We are seeking a leader with high emotional intelligence, able to win the hearts and minds of internal customers and provide real value to the business as a whole.

Please note this is a 5 day a week onsite role - core hours 10-3pm - flexibility to work from home on occasion is provided but in general this role is a fully office based position.

Key Role requirements

Strategic Direction & Roadmap

• Define the data science and ML roadmap in partnership with the Director of AI and Technology and wider tech leadership.
• Prioritise the team's model and experiment backlog by measurable business value.
• Translate ambiguous commercial problems into hypotheses, experiments, and ML products.

About the Role

• Design, train, evaluate, and productionise ML models across the relevant techniques (classification, regression, recommenders, LTV, uplift, sequence models, embeddings).
• Lead A/B automation testing and causal inference work; own statistical rigour and readouts.
• Ensure models are explainable, monitored, retrained on a defined cadence, and have clear ownership.

Responsibilities

• Leadership & Talent Development
• Line-manage data scientists and graduate data scientists; set goals, conduct 1:1s, support career growth.
• Set the technical bar through code review, model review, and architecture review.
• Create a learning culture: paper reading, experiment write-ups, internal tech talks, Kaggle / open-source participation.
• Stakeholder Partnership & Communication
• Act as the principal data science point of contact for Studio, UA, Growth, and Finance leaders.
• Communicate results clearly to non-technical leaders; drive decisions, not just decks.
• Contribute the data science view into SLT and board-level reporting where required.
• Governance, Ethics & Risk
• Ensure data science work complies with privacy, security, and platform policy (GDPR, COPPA where relevant, store policy).
• Document model risk, bias considerations, and mitigation steps for any customer-facing model.
• Operate within agreed cost guardrails for compute, storage, and third-party APIs.
• Ad-hoc other tasks which may arise from time to time and be assigned to you by your line manager.

Qualifications

• Degree in Mathematics, Physics, Statistics, Chemistry, Engineering or a related quantitative disciplines. MSc or PhD is a plus.

Required Skills

• 5+ years applied data science / ML, including 2+ years tech-leading or line-managing.
• Demonstrable track record of ML models in production delivering measurable business outcomes.
• Games, mobile, or consumer-tech experience preferred but not required.
• Expertise in Python and SQL, Cloud & Data Platforms and Data Visualisation.
• Experience in technical leadership and mentoring team members.
• Excellent communication, collaboration, and problem-solving skills.

Benefits

• Generous Holiday: Start with 25 days of annual leave, plus bank holidays. You'll also earn an extra day for every year of service, up to 5 years!
• Flexible Working: We offer core hours that allow you to work flexibly around your life, and a bank of 'Work From Home' days to use when you need them.
• Health Cover: Private medical cover, life assurance, a solid pension plan, and cover for dental and optical care.
• Recharge: Take advantage of our on-site gym and a supportive atmosphere that prioritises your wellbeing.
• Free Food & Drink: Fuel your day with unlimited free snacks and drinks.
• Growth & Learning: Full access to LinkedIn Learning to support your continuous professional development.

Office Location

• Leamington Spa office location, with free parking and electric charging stations.