Applied Science Manager

Research @ Tractable 

Our team shapes the technical foundations used across all Tractable products, currently focused on auto insurance and natural disaster recovery. Our mission is to leverage the latest ML research to solve hard science problems necessary to transform the insurance industry (& more). We focus on creating mission-critical AI systems solving some of the trickiest problems in computer vision, and our innovation has already improved the lives of 100,000s of people so far (really). We’re a fun and ambitious team, and looking for someone to join us on our exciting journey!

Auto organisation – Who we are & What we do

Our organisation is responsible for building products for the automotive industry. Currently, we have two product lines, Estimating, and Review that are sold globally to the largest automotive insurance companies and a third product, Inspection, that serves the vehicle salvage market. 

Our long-term vision is to build a platform ecosystem that creates high performance building blocks to efficiently serve new products and use cases in a very efficient and self-serve manner.  Our current mission is to create a reliable and safe “virtual” motor expert as a service, in order to serve a range of use cases across the entire lifecycle of the automotive industry. We are doing so, by reimagining all the key parts of the stack from building high signal, easy to use input capture applications for our end users, to creating a state-of-the-art damage assessment engine, followed by an explainable, configurable, self-learning and human-centric decision-making and costing solution.

We work hand-in-hand with engineering, product management and end product teams to turn our R&D outcomes to enable trustworthy automation in real world applications.

What will you be doing?

As an Applied science Manager, you will build and lead a group of Applied Scientists as they solve these complex and highly nuanced problems to deliver trusted AI modules for the Automotive platform.  

This role combines tech expertise, science leadership, organisational skills, product focus, and business understanding to bring them all together to deliver on ambitious and industry changing solutions. You will hire top talent, develop and direct them, to research, develop, deploy, and maintain solutions that are deployed to Tractable’s global customer base. You should be willing to dive deep, move rapidly with a bias for action, and enable your teams to generate breakthroughs in science that can deliver pragmatic value for customers. You should have an entrepreneurial spirit, love autonomy, and know how to build and deliver pioneering solutions to challenging problems. This role will require resourcefulness and a fearless willingness to learn and scale to serve the technical and business side. In short, you will wear many hats in this role and the successful candidate will be one that enjoys being ambitious while working autonomously. 

As an Applied Science Manager, you will:

• Directly manage and lead a team of Applied Scientists and ML Engineers to deliver AI/ML solutions at scale that empower our devices to provide the best experience for our customers.
• Define a long-term science vision, driven by our customers' needs, translate that direction into science roadmaps, and foster cross-team collaboration to execute complex projects.
• Act as a technical supervisor, able to assess scientific direction, and technical design documents, and steer development efforts to maximize project delivery.
• Hire and develop top talent, and provide technical and career development guidance to scientists and engineers within and across the organization.
• Develop and manage a research agenda that balances short-term deliverables with measurable business impact, as well as long-term investments.
• Drive continued scientific innovation and advance the team's engineering craftsmanship as a practitioner and thought leader.

What we’re looking for… 

• Masters degree with Applied Research experience (Phd in Computer Science or related field with a focus on Machine learning is a strong plus).
• Experience in building complex AI/ML models and systems for business application (Experience in building AI/ML systems that scale globally is a strong plus).
• Experience in leading Scientists or Machine learning engineers
• Strong Experience programming in Python (experience in C++ or related languages is a plus)
• Extensive knowledge and practical experience in several of the following areas: machine vision (classical methods and deep learning), information retrieval, natural language processing 
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills, with the ability to communicate complex technical concepts and solutions to all levels of the organisation

What’s in it for you

Generous financial reward for your effort

• Yearly compensation reviews
• Generous equity package
• 5% employer match on pension

Time off and flexible working

• 25 days paid annual leave + bank holidays
• Ability to work from abroad for up to 6 weeks/year
• Competitive maternity + paternity leave
• Flexible hours and hybrid working 
• Additional leave to support you when you need it, including sick pay, compassionate leave, or paid time-off to recharge after an intense work period

Support for your health and wellbeing

• Highest tier of private health coverage through Bupa 
• Eyewear and eyetests expense scheme
• Annual Headspace Subscription
• Mental health coaching with Sanctus

Additional perks 

• Workplace Nursery Benefit
• L&D budget to use on Learnerbly (our learning platform)
• WFH expense scheme
• Cycle to Work scheme
• Charity donation scheme with Tyve

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