{"id":164316,"url":"https://alion.io/job/five9-vice-president-data-science","title":"Vice President, Data Science","company":{"id":58571,"name":"Five9","domain":"five9.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/five9","size_band":"51-200","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Greenhouse","truth_index":{"grade":"B","score":76,"open_postings":81,"ghost_share":0.309,"stale_share":0,"repost_share":0,"time_to_fill_p50_days":76,"computed_at":"2026-10-17T05:46:00Z"}},"role":"Leadership","role_family":"Leadership","seniority":"head","employment_type":null,"work_mode":"hybrid","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["San Ramon, United States","United States"],"countries":["US"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":{"min":233000,"max":512000,"currency":"USD","period":"year","gross":null,"usd_annual":512000},"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":12,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":true,"technologies":[{"name":"AI Agents","optional":false},{"name":"Anthropic","optional":false},{"name":"CI/CD","optional":false},{"name":"Fine-tuning","optional":false},{"name":"LLM","optional":false},{"name":"LLM Guardrails","optional":false},{"name":"Machine Learning","optional":false},{"name":"Mistral","optional":false},{"name":"OpenAI","optional":false},{"name":"Prompt Engineering","optional":false},{"name":"Python","optional":false},{"name":"RAG","optional":false}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2025-12-23T21:10:47Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-09-21","last_verified_at":"2026-10-17T19:13:24Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":297,"trust":{"level":"ghost","repost_count":0,"flags":["stale","company_stale"],"days_open":297},"description":"Join us in bringing joy to customer experience. Five9 is a leading provider of cloud contact center software, bringing the power of cloud innovation to customers worldwide. \nLiving our values everyday results in our team-first culture and enables us to innovate, grow, and thrive while enjoying the journey together. We celebrate diversity and foster an inclusive environment, empowering our employees to be their authentic selves. \nAs Vice President of Data Science, you will lead and grow our in-house data science team. This team is responsible for research, experimentation, data collection and curation, and data analysis that contributes to the performance of Five9’s AI products. Tasks include evaluation of and selection of AI agent architectural frameworks, evaluation and comparison of LLM models across commercial and open source choices, model fine-tuning for dedicated tasks, prompt engineering, prompt structure and design, and composite model definitions and evaluations. The scale of Five9 provides a wealth of data that data science team has access to. The data science team is very much applied - their work directly makes its way into real products providing direct customer benefit. \nAs lead of this team, you will take complete ownership of the technical and operational direction of the organization, including growing to team to meet increased demand for its capabilities. \nKey Responsibilities:\nTechnical Direction Setting: As an expert in the leading edge of AI and data science, you will direct the team on the methodologies, practices, algorithms, experiments and processes they perform.\nHands On: You are expected to also be hands on, not just a manger, and be directly responsible for some amount of the technical work in addition to directing the team.\nOrganizational Growth: You will be tasked with growing the team, and ensuring we have the right talent to accomplish our goals.\nCollaborator and Spokesperson: You will act as an internal and external spokesperson for data science, and collaborate with stakeholders across the company. Internally, you will be expected to meet with product managers, executives and estaff, and be able to converse effectively with them. You will also occasionally meet with customers to understand how Five9 products, and the data science behind them, impacts the customers. You are expected to participate in industry activities, including publication of blog posts and papers, along with participation in AI conferences. \nTechnical Expertise:\n12+ years experience in data science or AI applied research, ideally at a best-in-class applied research organization.\n Deep Expertise in Modern AI/ML\nExtensive hands-on experience with LLMs, agentic architectures, retrieval-augmented systems, transformers, and composite model pipelines.\nStrong understanding of commercial and open-source model ecosystems (e.g., OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Meta, Mistral), including evaluation, benchmarking, and tradeoff analysis.\nModel Development & Optimization\nProven ability to perform fine-tuning, supervised/unsupervised training, prompt engineering, prompt optimization, and model orchestration for real-world use cases.\nExperience designing evaluation frameworks, experiment methodologies, and robust model comparison workflows.\nData Engineering & Curation\nExpertise in large-scale data collection, labeling, cleaning, and curation pipelines, preferably with conversational or unstructured text data.\nFamiliarity with tools and techniques for data quality assessment, dataset versioning, and data governance.\nApplied Data Science & Analytics\nStrong proficiency in statistical analysis, A/B experimentation, causal inference, and performance measurement.\nDemonstrated success turning data insights into product improvements that drive measurable business outcomes.\n Software Development & Systems Thinking\nAbility to work with engineering teams using modern software practices (Python, data platforms, cloud-native environments, APIs, ML Ops tooling).\nUnderstanding of production ML systems, deployment patterns, monitoring, and safety/guardrail design. \nPeople & Collaboration Skills:\nCross-Functional Partnering\nAbility to collaborate effectively with product managers, engineering leaders, UX, and GTM teams to translate business needs into data science strategies.\nAdept at explaining complex technical concepts to executives, customers, and non-technical stakeholders.\n Communication & Storytelling\nExceptional written and verbal communication skills, including ability to publish thought leadership (papers, blog posts) and present at conferences.\nTeam Development & Mentorship\nPassion for mentoring senior and junior data scientists, fostering technical excellence, and building a culture of experimentation and rigorous thinking.\nCustomer Empathy\nExperience engaging directly with customers to understand their needs, gather feedback, and translate insights into product or model improvements.\nLeadership & Strategic Skills:\nVision Setting & Direction\nAbility to define the data science strategy for AI Agents and customer experience products, aligning with corporate priorities and market opportunities.\nHands-On Leadership\nComfortable being an active contributor-writing code, running experiments, reviewing research-while simultaneously guiding the team’s overall direction.\nOrganizational Scaling\nExperience hiring, scaling, and structuring high-performing data science teams across multiple geographies.\nOperational Excellence\nAbility to build processes for experimentation, model evaluation, data quality management, and continuous delivery of data science innovation into product.\nExecutive Presence & Influence\nSkilled at influencing E-staff and senior leadership, defending technical decisions, shaping product strategy, and representing data science internally and externally.\nEthics, Safety & Risk Awareness\nDeep understanding of responsible AI principles, privacy considerations, and model safety, including evaluating risks when operating at enterprise scale.\nEducational Requirements:\nAdvanced degree in a quantitative or technical field, such as:\nPh.D. in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Statistics, Applied Mathematics, Electrical Engineering, Computational Linguistics, or a related field.\nMaster’s degree in one of the above fields with significant applied industry experience in AI/ML leadership roles.\nWork Location: This role is fully remote for candidates who reside outside the 30 mile radius of one of our offices. For candidates who reside within a 30 mile radius of one of our offices, this role is Hybrid and would require 3 days a week (T, W, TH) in office. \nAs part of our continued commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion, Five9 supports pay transparency during the entire recruitment process. Actual compensation packages are based on several factors that are unique to each candidate including, but not limited to: skill set, depth of experience, certifications, and specific work location. The range displayed reflects the minimum and maximum target for new hire salaries for the job across the United States. Your recruiter can share more about the specific compensation package during your hiring process.\nAdditionally, the total compensation package for this position may also include an annual performance bonus, stock, and/or other applicable incentive compensation plans.\nOur total reward package also includes:\nHealth, dental, and vision coverage, beginning on the first day of employment. Five9 covers 100% of the employee portion of the health, dental and vision coverage and shares a high portion of the dependent cost. We also offer Short & Long-Term Disability, Basic Life Insurance, and a 401k saving plan with employer matching.\nAccess to an innovative mental health support platform that offers personalized care and resources in areas such as: therapy, coaching and self-guided mindfulness exercises for all covered employees and their covered dependents.\nGenerous employee stock purchase plan.\nPaid Time Off, Company paid holidays, paid volunteer hours and 12 weeks paid parental leave.\nAll compensation and benefits are subject to the requirements and restrictions set forth in the applicable plan documents and any written agreements between the parties.\nThe US base salary range for this role is below.\n$233,000—$512,000 USD\nFive9 embraces diversity and is committed to building a team that represents a variety of backgrounds, perspectives, and skills. The more inclusive we are, the better we are. Five9 is an equal opportunity employer. \nFive9 is committed to providing reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities throughout the application and interview process. If you need assistance or an accommodation due to a disability, please contact us at  to request an accommodation. Requests will be handled confidentially and in accordance with applicable law.\nView our privacy policy, including our privacy notice to California residents here: https://www.five9.com/pt-pt/legal. \nNote: Five9 will never request that an applicant send money as a prerequisite for commencing employment with Five9.","description_format":"text","description_chars":9195,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":12,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":{"level":"master","optional":false},"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":["401k plan","Equity","Life insurance","Parental leave"],"hiring_locations":[{"name":"United States","iso":"US","kind":"country"}],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Conversational AI","AI Agents","Contact Center Software"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2025-12-23T21:10:47Z"}],"visa":[{"country":"US","licensed_sponsor":true,"evidence":"H-1B filings in 12 months: 14 · green card filings: 8","filings_12m":14,"filings_prev_12m":11,"green_card_filings_12m":8,"median_offered_wage_usd":141136,"route":null,"cap_exempt":false,"checked_at":"2026-10-15T11:24:14+00:00","sources":["US Department of Labor: LCA disclosure data (H-1B, H-1B1, E-3)","US Department of Labor: PERM disclosure data (green cards)"],"filings_for_role_12m":3}],"liveness":{"score":8,"band":"cold","label":"Long shot","p_open":1,"p_active":0.3,"p_room":0.28,"age_days":297,"expected_fill_days":76,"reasons":["conf:3","velocity","ghost","win:tail","crowd:"],"computed_at":"2026-10-17T05:46:00Z"},"pay":{"stated_usd_annual":512000,"is_top_pay":true},"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/five9-vice-president-data-science","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/five9-vice-president-data-science.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-10-17T19:38:07Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":3017,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-10-18T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":58571},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=58571"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Ffive9-vice-president-data-science"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":1,"usd":0.1},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Ffive9-vice-president-data-science"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Ffive9-vice-president-data-science"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/five9-vice-president-data-science\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Ffive9-vice-president-data-science"}]}