Head of Machine Learning

Descrizione

iwoca is breaking down the barriers that stop Europe’s 20 million small businesses from accessing finance. Traditional bank loans have slow application processes, inflexible terms and burdensome criteria. In contrast, we use cutting-edge technology to offer flexible access to credit with a five minute application process and a decision in hours.

Since 2012, we've lent over £400 million to over 20,000 businesses across Europe. Our customers include everything from cafés to car dealers, salons to solicitors. Along the way we have built a sophisticated technology platform, won numerous awards and grown a fun, and vibrant team.

However, we’re still near the start of our journey – our aim is to finance a million small businesses within a decade and so we need more smart, hands-on people to help us reach this goal.

iwoca is the market leader in accurately lending to small businesses. By ingesting, processing and making sense of a huge variety of data on each application we understand our customer’s risk profile better than anyone else. This allows us to extend credit to the small businesses that need it.

A large portion of our existing processing is automated, especially in data collection, but to be able to serve our customers (both in speed and precision) we would like to automate more of the high-level analysis, much of which is currently manual.

Within our tech & analytics department we are building a machine learning unit dedicated to automating these higher-level tasks. The role is to run this unit, from both a technical and managerial perspective. Reporting to our CTO, you will be expected to utilise your data-driven curiosity to help us analyze our customer data in order to identify opportunities where we can optimise our risk models to drive efficiency and speed throughout the process.

• Build a team dedicated to deriving meaningful and actionable insights from our data as well as contribute to innovation behind our platform
• Lead the team in turning raw data into rich, meaningful and actionable insights
• Provide thought leadership for machine learning and data science research
• Identify relevant technology and engage with external industrial or academic partners
• Further enhance advanced machine learning/AI and statistical learning methods
• Leverage other open source machine learning software/algorithms
• Work closely with our CTO and business stakeholders to drive business growth and deliver outstanding work
• Drive the focus in transforming analytics within credit decision making, scorecard development and defining/implementing AI/predictive analytics

• An advanced Degree (Master's or PhD) in Computer Science, Statistics, Engineering, Mathematics, Physics, or a related quantitative field
• Experience working in the field of machine learning and data science
• Proven track record of working with large data sets to develop innovative data products and capabilities and extract actionable insights
• Expert knowledge of statistical modelling methods for supervised and unsupervised learning
• Commercial experience working with either Python or R (we use Python)
• Knowledge of databases and related languages/tools such as SQL and NoSQL
• Experience with cloud computing platforms (AWS is desirable)
• Strong knowledge of the mathematical foundations of statistical inference and forecasting such as time series analysis, multivariate analysis, cluster analysis, and optimization
• Ability to lead and manage a team of juniors Data Scientists
• Effective communication skills and ability to explain complex data products in simple terms

Benefits

In addition to a competitive salary, we also provide the following:

• A smart, fun and internationally diverse team - together, we represent over 35 different nationalities
• Company retreats in great locations - we have at least two per year in places like the French Alps and by the Spanish seaside
• A really lovely office in central London - we’re right by Tottenham Court Road, and close to the bars, theatres and restaurants in Soho and Fitzrovia
• Pool, ping pong, foosball tables and tournaments, morning yoga and an ever-growing number of active clubs (you can set up your own!) - such as climbing, chess, cycling, football, running, boxing, etc
• Regular novelty perks such as free massages, which can be proposed by anyone in the team
• Plenty of drinks and snacks in our office kitchen
• Cycle-to-work scheme for great value bikes
• Company-wide talks with internal and external speakers
• Enhanced maternity/paternity leave and shared parental leave
• Stock options for all employees after 6 months within the business
• 25 days holiday a year, plus all UK Bank holidays, plus a day off for your birthday
• The opportunity to give your time to support a charity of your choice, via a paid volunteering day
• Additional leave so that you can take more time to go travelling or to study, outside of your holiday allowance

• Tickets to exciting tech conferences across Europe
• A calendar of tech meetups hosted on the premises
• Flexible working, including flexible hours and working from home days - all made easy with video conferencing and slack