Senior Data Scientist

We're a leading SaaS provider revolutionising how fintech companies navigate complex regulatory landscapes. Our platform powers compliance and risk management for hundreds of innovative financial services companies, from emerging startups to established enterprises. We believe in empowering our teams to solve meaningful problems and create exceptional value for our customers.

Role Summary

As a Senior Data Scientist at ComplyAdvantage, you will lead the development and refinement of sophisticated data-driven solutions to detect and prevent financial crime globally. Your core focus is R&D and Strategic Initiatives, where you will spend 80% of your time conducting forward-looking research in ML, NLP, and Agentic AI to create measurable business value over 3-6 month horizons. In addition to driving deep-dive R&D, you will provide expert advisory support and technical leadership to Product and Engineering teams. By leading AI Enablement workstreams, you will empower these departments with the quantitative insights and frameworks necessary to scale high-impact, AI-driven features while mentoring more junior members of the tribe.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead R&D in GenAI and Agentic AI: Design and prototype high-impact, novel solutions for financial crime detection, focusing on multi-agent systems and RAG architectures built on foundational LLM frameworks.
• Drive Production Excellence: Partner with Engineering and Product leadership to architect and oversee the integration of AI components into core product features. You will define the standards for reliability, scalability, and ethical AI performance, ensuring research prototypes transition into robust, production-grade solutions.
• Establish Evaluation Frameworks: Lead the development of robust evaluation methodologies for LLM and agentic AI systems, defining industry-standard metrics for task completion, reasoning accuracy, and system reliability.
• Evaluate Model Context Protocol (MCP): Research applications to connect our AI systems with external data sources and tools, providing strategic recommendations for engineering implementation.
• Strategic Data Insights: Conduct advanced exploratory analysis across multiple data sources to uncover insights that directly influence product development decisions and agent behavior.
• Research & Innovation: Continuously research and evaluate emerging tools and best practices in data science and Agentic AI to keep ComplyAdvantage at the forefront of the field.
• Technical Leadership & Mentoring: Engage across multi-disciplinary teams to share expertise, perform code reviews, and provide career development support to junior data scientists.

Required Qualifications

• MSc or PhD in a numerate subject (e.g., Computer Science, Mathematics, Statistics, Physics) or equivalent practical experience in a data-intensive role.
• 4-7 years of professional experience in data science or machine learning, with a demonstrable impact on production systems.
• Expert-level proficiency in Python, including the core data science ecosystem such as Pandas, NumPy, and Scikit-learn.
• Deep experience with modern ML frameworks (e.g., TensorFlow, PyTorch) for advanced research and prototyping.
• Strong expertise in Agentic AI and LLMs: Advanced knowledge of agentic AI frameworks (e.g., LangChain, Pydantic AI) and experience optimising retrieval systems like RAG.
• Experience with Distributed Computing: Practical knowledge of platforms like Spark or Dask for large-scale data analysis.
• Technical Leadership: Proven track record of leading technical research projects with successful production outcomes and communicating complex concepts to diverse audiences.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience delivering machine learning solutions and integrating into data pipelines.
• Experience with Natural Language Processing, Entity Resolution, Graph Theory, or Graph Machine Learning.
• Experience working with or evaluating multi-agent systems or complex GenAI workflows.

What Success Looks Like

• In 90 days: You have successfully onboarded, mastered our data landscape, and begun contributing to active research projects while building relationships with key stakeholders.
• In 6 months: You have delivered your first significant research project with measurable impact and established yourself as a technical leader and effective mentor.
• In 12 months: You have led multiple successful R&D initiatives that have shaped our technical roadmap and been recognized as a subject matter expert who empowers other teams.

About Data Science at ComplyAdvantage:
The Data Science tribe discovers and proves out impactful solutions that leverage our Petabyte-scale data infrastructure to neutralise global financial crime. We are responsible for research and development work that drives the "art of the possible" within our product suite. At ComplyAdvantage, we mine the internet for critical data and use it to power a dynamic knowledge graph, which uncovers hidden networks of financial bad actors. From exploring real-time stream processing with Kafka to pioneering the use of the latest LLMs, our modern technology stack allows us to innovate and build prototypes for cutting-edge agentic AI and large-scale algorithmic solutions that empower our clients.

What’s in it for you?

• Equity as we want you to have a part of what we are building
• Private medical insurance designed to keep you ensuring peace of mind while you excel in your career
• Unlimited Time Off Policy- A work-life balance and focus on our well-being are critical to keeping us performing at our best
• We embrace a hybrid approach that requires employees to be in the office for two days a week. We strongly believe that this approach fosters collaboration and enables the building of meaningful relationships
• You will also get a new starter budget to kit out your home office
• Opportunity to work on innovative projects with smart-minded people keen to share their knowledge and continuously improve
• Annual learning budget (prorated based on start date) to drive your performance and career development