Principal Data Scientist

The role

We are seeking a Principal Data Scientist to focus on the most strategic priorities within Data Science and to collaborate broadly to help others in the organization grow.   In this role you will report directly to the VP of Data Science and accomplish high-impact work across multiple teams, divisions and organizations as the most senior technical contributor in the DS org. Beyond direct impact on key projects, your responsibility will include mentorship, leadership in shaping standards for technical design and execution, hiring practices, and operational excellence.

The ideal candidate is very hands-on and equally motivated to develop strategies and plans that will move us forward. This role is comfortable making opinionated decisions and very often those decisions prove to be useful. This role will work closely with engineering, product, data science, executive teams and more to drive vision, strategy and execution. You’ll play the critical role of bridging the technical and business worlds to deliver solutions that enable data scientists and engineers to get things done while driving our business forward. 

What you’ll do:

• Deliver high quality designs and code that benefits our Members
• Make significant contributions to the technical architecture of the various products and systems.
• Generate ideas for new business-impacting initiatives and ways of leveraging data and machine learning in the pursuit of our goals.
• Advocate for continually-improving practices and drive inspiring standards for hiring, coding and collaboration.
• Develop, apply, and socialize impactful technology, engineering principles and concepts. 
• Work across teams at SoFi  to help develop & enhance products and systems.
• Provide technical mentorship to data scientists and continually improve our data-driven culture.
• Lead & present in broad forums with senior technical leaders across the company.

What you’ll need:

• Likely 10+ years of experience, with significant depth in multiple areas such as applied machine learning, experimentation and scalable insights and advanced analytics. If you have less experience but feel this is the right job for you, we want to hear what has been exceptional about your faster journey.
• Expert understanding and hands-on experience building and operating production data products and infrastructure. Your focus is data, but you have solid engineering skills. The lessons you have learned in your career so far will help accelerate the team.
• Deep hands-on experience with major technologies such as Prefect, Airflow, DBT, git, docker/k8s, BI tools, Spark, Pytorch/TF, AWS, Snowflake, sklearn, sequence models / LLMs, etc. No one is an expert in everything but you have real breadth and depth.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills and a desire to share the right information with the right people. You do not need to be a polished speaker, you just need to be great at collaborating and helping others understand your work.

Who you are:

• You have a very high sense of agency in your work.  In situations where some might get blocked by challenges you find paths forward.
• You work and play well with others; SoFi is a highly collaborative workplace and a melting pot of diverse talent. You make others feel safe to bring their entire selves to work and foster a positive environment around you.
• You care personally about your team and you know that sometimes the best way to express that care is to challenge directly to get to the truth.
• You thrive on developing creative solutions to hard problems.
• You take pride in your craft and seek practical excellence. You make high judgment decisions to deliver world-class results without getting distracted by impossible perfection.
• You are customer-obsessed and have an affinity for solving complex problems and shipping impactful features.
• You are confident in asking difficult questions at all levels of the organization.
• You listen  and eagerly accept feedback, knowing that it can help you grow.
• You love learning - you have the ability to quickly and independently acquire proficiency in new languages and technologies.
• You are either experienced with finance / fintech or you are enthusiastic to learn and grow in this space.
• Mentoring others motivates you. You consistently find ways to encourage technical growth of those around you.
• Helping people live better lives with the help of technology motivates and inspires you to do your best work.