Head of Data Science
Core
Build Paddle's data science capability from the ground up to own automated decisioning inside the product using machine learning and agentic systems.
Role type
Founding Head of Data Science (hands-on IC transitioning to leadership)
Builds
Production ML models and agentic systems for payment performance, revenue recovery, sales/marketing ops, growth, and risk/compliance.
Domain
Fintech / Payments / SaaS
Deliverable
production ML models
Required skills
Leading data science/ML teams, hands-on ML engineering (SQL/Python), traditional ML (propensity/uplift), agentic systems design, production system operations (monitoring/retraining/rollback), experimentation (A/B testing), hiring senior talent, executive stakeholder management, regulated domain experience (payments/fintech), model risk assessment.
Preferred skills
Experience in high-volume commercial operations, familiarity with EU AI Act/GDPR compliance in ML.
Technologies
Python, SQL, model registries, inference services, feature stores, trace observability, agentic workflows.
Responsibilities
Prioritize and sequence high-impact use cases; personally deliver first end-to-end systems; operate live decisioning systems; build and lead the data science team; establish the production ML stack; define governance for automated decisioning; measure and report realized economic value.
Seniority
Founding, Senior
