Senior Data Scientist, Causal Inference

About Tala

Tala is a global technology company building the world’s most accessible financial services. With more than $350 million raised from visionary investors, we are serving millions of customers around the world who have been overlooked by traditional financial institutions – and our plan is to serve millions more, and have been named by the Fortune Impact 20 list, CNBC’s Disruptor 50, and Forbes’ Fintech 50 list for five years running. We are expanding across product offerings, countries and crypto and are looking for people who have an entrepreneurial spirit and are passionate about the mission.

By creating a unique platform that enables lending and other financial services around the globe, people in emerging markets are able to start and expand small businesses, manage day-to-day needs, and pursue their financial goals with confidence. Currently, more than 7 million people across Kenya, the Philippines, Mexico, and India have used Tala products. Due to our global team, we have a remote-first approach, and also have offices in Santa Monica, CA (HQ); Nairobi, Kenya; Mexico City, Mexico; Manila, the Philippines; and Bangalore, India. 

Most Talazens join us because they connect with our mission of enabling financial agency for underbanked people around the world. If you are energized by the impact you can make at Tala, we’d love to hear from you!

We are looking for a Senior Data Scientist interested in solving one of the world's biggest problems: financial inclusion. As a Data Scientist, you will lead data science initiatives that drive improvements in customer experience, operational efficiency, and recovery. You will own the modeling cycle through scoping, development, deployment, after-sale, and monitoring, with a keen focus on business outcomes and stakeholder management.

• Embed with business stakeholders to identify, test, and implement data science solutions with a particular focus on econometric models, experiments, and frameworks to assess challenging causal problems such as lifetime value or retention.
• Develop a roadmap in collaboration with stakeholders to organize and prioritize initiatives.
• Own full-cycle of machine learning products from ideation and training through deployment into our production environment – including real-time inference – and after-sale service. Obsess over machine learning products, deploying and iterating rapidly when necessary.
• Propose, design, and analyze large-scale online experiments and support business stakeholders with experimental design best practices.
• Become a multiplier for the data science team by sharing work, providing mentorship to junior team members, providing technical feedback, and developing work into shared team tooling.
• Be a thought partner for the business, leverage data insights and strong communication skills to influence company strategy. Develop roadmaps in collaboration with stakeholders to organize and prioritize initiatives.

• 4+ years of experience in a data science role or equivalent position.
• You have 2+ years of experience in a senior/lead position, leading the execution of end-to-end machine learning solutions for business stakeholders.
• Fluency with Python and packages related to machine learning.
• Comfort with SQL.
• Experience with the full modeling cycle, from scoping and development through deployment, after-sale, and monitoring. Demonstrated delivery of business value in previous roles. 
• Competency with statistics. Knowledge of experimental design and analysis. Previous experience with causal modeling techniques.
• Strong collaboration and communication skills. Ability to tell stories through data and effective visualization. 
• Ability to thrive in, at times, ambiguous and complex environments.
• Desire to champion simple, robust systems and to deploy and iterate as needed.

• Experience deploying real-time model inference/scoring systems

Our vision is to build a new financial ecosystem where everyone can participate on equal footing and access the tools they need to be financially healthy. We strongly believe that inclusion fosters innovation and we’re proud to have a diverse global team that represents a multitude of backgrounds, cultures, and experience. We hire talented people regardless of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, gender expression, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status.