Director, Data Science
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Key skills for this role
About the Role
Mastercard is seeking a Director of Data Science to lead a team focused on merchant risk solutions within the Security Solutions Data Science team. You will define strategy for merchant registry and profiling, guide development of scalable ML systems, and partner with product and engineering teams.
Key Skills for This Role
Responsibilities
- Define and execute the strategy for solving merchant risk during onboarding and monitoring through merchant registry and profiling capability.
- Lead, coach, and develop high performing teams of Data Scientists, including hiring, mentorship, and performance management.
- Build a strong team culture focused on collaboration, accountability, and continuous learning.
- Guide the design of scalable machine learning and analytical systems using modern data and cloud platforms such as Databricks and Spark.
- Establish best practices for problem framing, technique selection, experimentation, and validation across the team.
- Ensure teams identify appropriate approaches for business problems and rigorously validate solutions.
- Partner closely with Product, Engineering, and other stakeholders to translate strategic needs into data science roadmaps.
- Drive Agile delivery practices that support iterative development, measurable outcomes, and continuous improvement.
- Promote reusable data assets, standardization, and scalable workflows.
- Communicate strategy, progress, trade offs, and business value clearly to senior leadership.
- Balance long term vision with near term delivery to maximize impact and time to value.
Requirements
- Advanced degree (Master’s or PhD preferred) in Data Science, ML, or related field
- Extensive experience leading a Data Science team and driving innovation
- Proven track record of deploying high performance machine learning models at scale in production
- Strong proficiency with Python, SQL, and scalable Machine Learning and Cloud frameworks
- Strong ability to guide teams in identifying appropriate techniques and validating solutions rigorously
- Critical thinking and drive to produce high quality work
- Demonstrated success translating complex business problems into strategic data science initiatives
- Strong understanding of Agile methodologies
- Excellent stakeholder management, communication, and leadership skills
- Proven ability to build teams, influence roadmaps, and deliver measurable business value
Full Job Posting
Our Purpose
- Mastercard powers economies and empowers people in 200+ countries and territories worldwide.
- We support a wide range of digital payments choices, making transactions secure, simple, smart and accessible.
Title And Summary
- Director, Data Science
- The Security Solutions Data Science team delivers AI/ML models that support Mastercard’s Identity and risk products across payment networks.
- The organization builds scalable, repeatable, and resilient data science capabilities covering the end to end ML lifecycle.
Key Responsibilities Include
- Define and execute the strategy for solving merchant risk during onboarding and monitoring through merchant registry and profiling capability.
- Lead, coach, and develop high performing teams of Data Scientists, including hiring, mentorship, and performance management.
- Build a strong team culture focused on collaboration, accountability, and continuous learning.
- Guide the design of scalable machine learning and analytical systems using modern data and cloud platforms such as Databricks and Spark.
- Establish best practices for problem framing, technique selection, experimentation, and validation across the team.
- Ensure teams identify appropriate approaches for business problems and rigorously validate solutions against both technical and business outcomes.
- Partner closely with Product, Engineering, and other stakeholders to translate strategic needs into data science roadmaps and deliverables.
- Drive Agile delivery practices that support iterative development, measurable outcomes, and continuous improvement.
- Promote reusable data assets, standardization, and scalable workflows that strengthen long term execution.
- Communicate strategy, progress, trade offs, and business value clearly to senior leadership.
- Balance long term vision with near term delivery to maximize impact and time to value.
All About You Essential Skills
- Advanced degree (Master’s or PhD preferred) in Data Science, ML, or related field
- Extensive experience leading a Data Science team and driving innovation with inspiration.
- Experienced being a great people leader but able to dig into the work where necessary
- A proven track record of deploying high performance machine learning models at scale in a production environment
- Strong proficiency with Python, SQL, along with experience using scalable Machine Learning and Cloud frameworks
- Strong ability to guide teams in identifying appropriate techniques and validating solutions rigorously
- Critical thinking and a drive to produce high quality work, ensuring that all solutions meet rigorous standards
- Demonstrated success translating complex business problems into strategic data science initiatives. Ability to lead through ambiguity and change
- Strong understanding of Agile methodologies, with the ability to drive iterative delivery across cross functional teams
- Excellent stakeholder management, communication to both technical and non technical audiences, and leadership skills
- Proven ability to build teams, influence roadmaps, and deliver measurable business value in complex environments
- High energy and self driven orientation
Nice to Have
- Experience building or scaling shared data science platforms, registries, or enterprise data assets
- Familiarity with merchant risk, fraud, or identity ecosystems
- Experience driving cross team standardization and reusable capabilities
- Exposure to governance frameworks for model validation and AI systems
Pay Ranges
- Vancouver, Canada: CAD 154,000 CAD 247,000 CAD
- Toronto, Canada: CAD 154,000 CAD 247,000 CAD
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