The posting
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Job Summary
The Lead - Data Science delivers top-tier actionable insights using advanced predictive models and techniques. The Lead Data Scientist drives data-driven insights with advanced analytics and machine learning to support Bread Financial's enterprise needs. They research cutting-edge methods to enhance the team's expertise. They should lead innovative projects and design market differentiators. They should also mentor team members, working both independently and collaboratively.
Essential Job Functions
- Create and Design - Create machine-learning based tools or processes for data mining and data analytics. Extend data with third party sources of information when needed. Translate business problems into statistical problems, develop machine learning models and customized analysis to support business needs. - (15%)
- Advanced Analytics – Guide the team to extract and sample data, perform integrity checks, and preprocess missing values and outliers. Conduct exploratory analysis to select modeling methods. Use clustering and factor analysis to uncover patterns. Engineer features, train models (GLMs, tree-based, neural nets), validate, troubleshoot, assess impact, present findings, and support deployment - (15%)
- Collaboration & Communication – Effectively translates analytical insights into actionable recommendations for both managerial review and cross-functional stakeholders. Demonstrate strong communication with internal partners. Build knowledge of credit card ops, banking, finance, loyalty, retail, and regulations. Collaborate with data scientists to share best practices and innovations. - (30%)
- Model Risk Management - Develop foundational knowledge and guide the team on common model risks and regulatory requirements. Apply first line of defense controls during model development to minimize risk. Create governance documentation, archive model data/scripts/results. Collaborate with partners for validation/auditing and complete remediation as required. - (5%)
- Coaching and Development - Manage and coach the team to ensure delivery excellence, sustainability, and scalability. Support marketing and credit teams with end-to-end predictive solutions to understand customer behavior and target effectively. Oversee associate mentoring/onboarding, act as proxy for manager, and contribute to talent evaluation. - (10%)
- Data Science Innovation – Research industry trends in data science of new tools, emerging algorithms, advanced platforms, and alternative data to enhance modeling effectiveness and efficiency. Conduct use case testing for new tools/techniques/platforms/data and provide user input/feedback. C - (15%)
- Leadership - Demonstrate leadership by providing thought leadership, mentorship, and training to junior data scientists in the department. Independently lead analytical projects to completion, collaborate with stakeholders and utilize excellent communication skills to gain consensus on the recommendation. - (10%)
Minimum Qualifications
- Bachelor’s Degree in statistics, mathematics, engineering, data science, economics, computer science, or another related quantitative field.
- 8-10 years of experience in the software industry.
- 4+ years of experience in building and deployment of machine learning models.
Preferred Qualifications
- Master’s Degree in statistics, mathematics, engineering, data science, economics, or computer science
- Experience conducting data mining to solve business problems.
- Experience in extracting and processing large files/data sets.
- Experience interpreting model results and translating insights into business recommendations
Skills
- Machine Learning (ML)
- Structured Query Language (SQL)
- Data Analytics
- Data Mining
- Data Science
- Amazon Web Services (AWS)
- Financial Services
- Predictive Modeling
- Python (Programming Language)
Reports To: Manager and above
Direct Reports: 0
Work Environment
- Normal office environment, hybrid.
Other Duties
This job description is illustrative of the types of duties typically performed by this job. It is not intended to be an exhaustive listing of each and every essential function of the job. Because job content may change from time to time, the Company reserves the right to add and/or delete essential functions from this job at any time.
About Bread Financial®
At Bread Financial, you’ll have the opportunity to grow your career, give back to your community, and be part of our award-winning culture. We’ve been consistently recognized as a best place to work nationally and in many markets and we’re proud to promote an environment where you feel appreciated, accepted, valued, and fulfilled—both personally and professionally. Bread Financial supports the overall wellness of our associates with a diverse suite of benefits and offers boundless opportunities for career development and non-traditional career progression.
Bread Financial® (NYSE: BFH) is a tech-forward financial services company that provides simple, personalized payment, lending and saving solutions to millions of U.S. consumers. Our payment solutions deliver growth for some of the most recognized brands in travel & entertainment, health & beauty, technology, electronics, jewelry, home and specialty apparel through our co-brand and private label credit cards and pay-over-time products providing choice and value to our shared customers. Additionally, we offer Bread Financial general purpose credit cards and saving products that empower our customers and their passions for a better life.
Bread Financial proudly marks 30 years of success in 2026. To learn more about our global associates, our performance and our sustainability progress, visit breadfinancial.com or follow us on Instagram and LinkedIn.
- All job offers are contingent upon successful completion of credit and background checks.
- Bread Financial is an Equal Opportunity Employer.
Job Family:
Information Technology
Job Type:
Regular
