Director, Data Science (R12659)

Job Description

Oportun is seeking a Director of Data Science to join its team. The Director will be responsible for developing and enhancing Oportun’s core intellectual property used in scoring risk for underbanked consumers that lack a traditional credit bureau score. The director will work with large and diverse alternative data sets and utilize machine learning and statistical modeling to build scores and strategies for managing risk, collection/loss mitigation, take-up rates and fraud. He/She will also drive growth and optimize marketing spend across channels by leveraging alternative data.

Responsibilities:

• Develop data products and machine learning models used in Risk, Fraud, Collections, and portfolio management.
• Build accurate and automated monitoring tools for model performance.
• Build model deployment platform to shorten implementation time.
• Build end-to-end reusable pipelines from data acquisition to model output delivery.
• Lead initiatives to drive business value from start to finish.
• Lead discussions with Compliance, Bank Partners, and Model Risk Management teams.
• Lead, coach and partner with the DS and non-DS team to deliver results.

Qualifications:

• Master’s degree or PhD in a quantitative discipline (or Bachelor’s degree with significant experience)
• 10+ years of hands-on experience with data extraction, cleaning, analysis, and building reusable data pipelines (SQL, Spark SQL, Hive)
• 10+ years of experience leveraging modern machine learning toolsets and programming languages (Python)
• Experience leveraging machine learning techniques such as Gradient Boosting, Logistic Regression and Neural Network
• Excellent written and oral communication skills
• Strong stakeholder and project management skills
• Comfortable in a high-growth, fast-paced, agile environment

Oportun offers:

• A mission-driven fintech environment
• Opportunity to work with alternative data sets
• Opportunity to build scores and strategies for managing risk