Lead Data Scientist

Join RSA and make a difference every day. Whether you are just beginning your career or looking to take the next progressive step in your journey, RSA Insurance Ireland is an organization where you can be yourself, learn and develop and a place where your ideas and contributions matter. With offices in Belfast, Galway, and Dublin, we have embraced hybrid work empowering our people to work flexibly and to suit their individual needs, which enables them to deliver great service to the customers we look after every day. Our Dublin office is also home to our sister-company 123.ie. At RSA and 123.ie we empower our customers to make a difference in their lives. And the same goes for our employees. We are proud to have 32 different nationalities represented in our workforce. Our diverse customer base benefits from the diverse perspectives of our teams that serve them, solving complex problems with creative ideas. As a proud member of the Intact family, were part of something bigger with a presence in North America, the UK, and Europe. Our business has grown organically and through acquisitions to over $21 billion of total annual premiums. We want you to thrive and grow with us and well give you all the tools, flexibility and learning opportunities you need to do it. And, if you bring your best, then we promise to give you, our best. Culture and Community RSA is a purpose-driven business our purpose is to help people, businesses, and society prosper in good times, and be resilient in bad times. We do that by living our values Integrity,Respect,Customer-driven,Excellence, andGenerosity in everything that we do. We provide an open and honest workplace where everybody contributes, and every view is listened-to and respected. Generosity is in our DNA and is the value that guides and enables our people to help others, protect the environment and make our communities more resilient. It drives our efforts to care for people and to give our time, financial resources and talent. Were also committed to helping society adapt to a changing climate taking reasonable care to ensure that our business activities are conducted in an environmentally sustainable manner. Our stats dont lie in our annual engagement survey 87% of our people celebrate the diversity in their teams and the wider company 90% of our people feel safe to speak up and share if theyve made a mistake 91% of our people feel valued and respected by leadership 89% of our people are benefiting and thriving through our hybrid working model So if you want to make a difference every day, wed love to have you. Lead Data Scientist RSA is developing an industry leading Data & Analytics function. We are looking to further strengthen our growing team. The lead data scientist will join a team of business facing analysts, data modelers, and analytics developers located in our three sites in Ireland (Dublin, Galway, Belfast) as well offshore resources. The lead data scientist will report to the Head of MI & Analytics. The lead data scientist will be responsible for solving complex business problems and discovering business insights using quantitative disciplines (statistical, algorithmic, and mining) and visualization techniques. The role requires to act as a data coach to not only bridge the technical gap between the D&A developers and the business users but also drive adoption and raise the level of data and AI literacy throughout the entire organization. The role holder will be responsible for enriching various processes and applications with machine learning and other AI capabilities, such as natural language processing, image recognition or optimization. The role holder will need to combine a good understanding of the business processes and associated D&A characteristics, which they help translate into D&A products and services. They need to combine technical understanding with domain knowledge and have a flair for working with various audiences on innovation. The lead data scientist will leverage the newly created technical capabilities of the Data & Analytics team and its central Cloud Data Infrastructure. It will be critical that Business expectations are set and that service levels are maintained. Regular business trips will be organised to engage with key stakeholders in RSA Ireland offices (Dublin, Galway, and Belfast). Key Responsibilities: Engage with stakeholders (business and IT) through the entire organisation to: Support the Head of MI&A to prepare and steer the agile ceremonies (daily stand up, backlog refinement, sprint review, sprint planning) Support the Head of MI&A to manage expectations during guardians sessions (value prioritisation, capacity management and delivery timelines) Provide a high level of visibility on the value delivered by the team leveraging all communication channels available (ITS huddles, ITS all hands, Organisation engagement platforms: MS Teams, Spotlights and Workvivo, various events organised in the office throughout the year) Display leadership qualities: influence and guide junior analysts in the team and across the business, fostering a collaborative and growth-oriented environment. Problem Analysis and Project Management Guide and inspire the organization about the business potential and strategy of artificial intelligence (AI)/data science Identify AI business opportunities Collaborate across the business to understand IT and business constraints Prioritize, scope, and manage data science projects and the corresponding key performance indicators for outperformance Contribute to the definition and communication of Data and AI governance principles Support the development of Data Literacy across the organisation by: Train other business and IT staff on basic data science principles and techniques Train and coach peers on specialist data science topics promoting analytics and data visualisation best practices ensure use of a common data language align stakeholders understanding of data assets and data capabilities ensure ethical data handling within the organisation including commitment to privacy regulations, data protection, and ethical use of customer information. Continuous Learning and Innovation Stay abreast of industry trends, emerging technologies, and best practices. Be curious, experiment with new tools, and champion innovation. Promoting analytics and data visualisation best practices Network with internal and external partners Upskill yourself (through conferences, publications, courses, local academia, and meetups). Promote collaboration with other data science teams within the IFC group. Encourage reuse of artifacts What The role involves supporting the company strategy execution - leveraging advance data analytics to generate value for the business via improved customer and pricing insights. Here is a more detailed breakdown of the responsibilities: Data Collection, Exploration, and Preparation Discover new data sources, document them, and promote reuse Help design and create data pipelines for more efficient and repeatable data science projects Apply statistical analysis and visualization techniques to various data Generate hypotheses about the underlying mechanics of the business process Test hypotheses using various quantitative methods Display drive and curiosity to understand the business process to its core Network with domain experts to better understand the business mechanics that generated the data Advanced Analytics Apply various ML and advanced analytics techniques to perform diverse classification or prediction tasks Integrate domain knowledge into the ML solution; for example, from an understanding of financial risk, customer journey, quality prediction, sales, marketing Testing of ML models, such as cross-validation, A/B testing, bias and fairness, stress-testing. Outstanding storytelling skills to deliver results to senior management. Operationalization & Infrastructure Collaborate with ML operations, data engineers, and IT to evaluate and implement ML deployment options Help to integrate model performance management tools into the current business infrastructure Continuously monitor execution and health of production ML models Establish best practices for ML development and production infrastructure Requirements: Minimum 5 years in a similar role with proven project experience in successfully launching, planning, and executing data science projects. A masters degree in computer science, data science, operations research, statistics, applied mathematics, or a related quantitative field is required. The ideal candidate will be adept in agile methodologies and well-versed in applying DevOps/MLOps methods to the construction of ML and data science pipelines. Candidates need to demonstrate that they were instrumental in executing end-to-end significant data science projects. Proven experience as a data scientist providing high value outputs to business stakeholders is required Substantial experience with Microsoft Azure technology stack (PowerBI, Synapse, Databricks) and several languages (SQL, SAS, R, Python, Scala). Regulatory Requirements: If this role is defined as a "controlled function" by the Central Bank Reform Act 2010 Regulations 2011. Any appointment will be conditional on the company being satisfied that you meet the requirements as set out in the Fitness & Probity standards issued in this Act. RSA Insurance Ireland DAC and its affiliate companies consider applicants on the basis of qualifications and without regard to race, colour, religion, sex, national origin, age, marital or veteran status, sexual orientation, disability or any other legally protected status Skills: Data Science Project Management Computer Science Benefits: Bonus & Benefits