{"id":3770638,"url":"https://alion.io/job/nerdwallet-senior-data-scientist-applied-ml","title":"Senior Data Scientist (Applied ML)","company":{"id":7244,"name":"NerdWallet","domain":"nerdwallet.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/nerdwallet","size_band":"501-1000","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Ashby","truth_index":{"grade":"A","score":91,"open_postings":7,"ghost_share":0,"stale_share":0.571,"repost_share":0,"time_to_fill_p50_days":21,"computed_at":"2026-11-08T05:47:12Z"}},"role":"Data Science","role_family":"Data Science","seniority":"senior","employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"remote","remote_scope":"stated_countries","remote_scope_basis":"posting_text","remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"explicit","locations":[],"countries":[],"hiring_countries":["US"],"hiring_countries_total":1,"salary":{"min":136000,"max":252000,"currency":"USD","period":"year","gross":null,"usd_annual":252000},"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":5,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"CI/CD","optional":false},{"name":"Databricks","optional":false},{"name":"LightGBM","optional":false},{"name":"Machine Learning","optional":false},{"name":"MLFlow","optional":false},{"name":"Python","optional":false},{"name":"PyTorch","optional":false},{"name":"Recommender Systems","optional":false},{"name":"Scikit-learn","optional":false},{"name":"SQL","optional":false},{"name":"TensorFlow","optional":false},{"name":"Wi-Fi","optional":false},{"name":"XGBoost","optional":false}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-11-04T20:06:20Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-11-04","last_verified_at":"2026-11-08T10:17:31Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":3,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":3},"description":"At NerdWallet, our mission is to provide clarity for all of life's financial decisions. Data Science plays a critical role in delivering on that mission, helping us better understand our consumers, personalize their experiences, and connect them with the financial products that best meet their needs.\nWe’re growing, and we’re looking for a Senior Data Scientist (Applied ML) to join us as a foundational member of our new team. You’ll help shape and advance our machine learning capabilities across consumer personalization, predictive modeling, and performance marketing, with a real voice in how we work from day one. Together, we’re building an inclusive, supportive team culture where we lift each other up and succeed together to drive business impact across the organization.\nIn this role, you will lead the development of production-grade machine learning solutions that power some of NerdWallet's most critical business decisions. From predicting customer lifetime value and scoring incoming leads in real time to developing recommendation engines that connect consumers with the right financial products, your work will have a direct impact on how we acquire, engage, and monetize our customer relationships.\nThis is a hands-on individual contributor role for someone with deep expertise in applied machine learning, production ML systems, and the Databricks ecosystem. As a foundational member of the team, you’ll partner closely with Data Engineering, Product, Marketing, and Analytics to translate complex business problems into scalable ML solutions, while helping establish the technical standards and best practices for machine learning across NerdWallet.\nWhere you can make an impact:\nBuild Predictive Models That Drive Business Growth\nLead the end-to-end development of advanced machine learning models focused on customer lifetime value (LTV), conversion propensity, lead quality, and revenue optimization.\n\nTranslate model predictions into actionable signals that improve marketing investment decisions, customer acquisition efficiency, and long-term profitability.\n\nAdvance Personalization & Recommendation Systems\nDevelop recommendation and ranking models that identify the most relevant financial products for individual consumers based on their needs, behaviors, and predicted propensity to engage or convert.\n\nExplore and implement approaches such as propensity modeling, learning-to-rank, and next-best-product recommendations to improve customer engagement and cross-sell opportunities.\n\nCollaborate with Product and Marketing to integrate predictive intelligence into consumer experiences and personalized communications.\n\nEstablish Best-in-Class ML Practices\nLeverage Databricks and MLflow to develop, train, deploy, monitor, and manage machine learning models at scale.\n\nEstablish robust DS practices, including experiment tracking, model versioning, feature engineering, automated training pipelines, model monitoring, and reproducibility.\n\nDefine standards for model performance, reliability, retraining, and production readiness, including monitoring for data drift and model degradation.\n\nDesign and evaluate experiments to measure the incremental business impact of deployed models and continuously improve their effectiveness.\n\nServe as a technical leader within Data Science, mentoring other practitioners, influencing architectural decisions, and elevating engineering and modeling standards across the organization.\n\nYour experience:\n5+ years of professional experience in Data Science, Applied Machine Learning, or a related field, with a demonstrated track record of developing and deploying ML solutions that drive measurable business impact.\n\nDeep, hands-on experience with Databricks, including building and managing production machine learning workflows using MLflow and the Databricks ML ecosystem. Please note: this role requires hands-on Databricks experience specifically, and experience with similar platforms is not a substitute.\n\nAdvanced proficiency in Python and SQL, with extensive experience using modern machine learning frameworks such as scikit-learn, XGBoost, LightGBM, PyTorch, or TensorFlow.\n\nStrong understanding of supervised learning, predictive modeling, classification, regression, ranking, and model evaluation techniques.\n\nPractical experience designing scalable batch and/or real-time inference systems, with an understanding of latency, reliability, and performance trade-offs.\n\nStrong software engineering fundamentals, including version control, testing, modular code design, and CI/CD practices for machine learning.\n\nDemonstrated ability to independently lead complex, ambiguous technical initiatives from problem definition through deployment and business impact measurement.\n\nStrong business acumen and the ability to connect technical solutions to measurable outcomes such as revenue growth, conversion improvement, customer lifetime value, and marketing efficiency.\n\nExcellent communication and collaboration skills, with experience influencing technical direction and working effectively with senior stakeholders and cross-functional teams.\n\nBachelor's or advanced degree in Computer Science, Statistics, Mathematics, Engineering, or a related quantitative discipline, or equivalent practical experience.\n\nWhere:\nThis role will be remote (based in the U.S.).\n\nWe believe great work can be done anywhere. No matter where you are based, NerdWallet offers benefits and perks to support the physical, financial, and emotional well being of you and your family.\n\nWhat we offer:\nWork Hard, Stay Balanced (Life’s a series of balancing acts, eh?)\nIndustry-leading medical, dental, and vision health care plans for employees and their dependents\n\nRejuvenation Policy - Flexible Vacation Time Off + 11 holidays + holiday company shutdown\n\nNew Parent Leave for employees with a newborn child or a child placed with them for adoption or foster care\n\nMental health support\n\nPaid sabbatical after 5 years for Nerds to recharge, gain knowledge, and pursue their interests\n\nHealth and Dependent Care FSA and HSA Plan with monthly NerdWallet contribution\n\nMonthly Wellness Stipend, Cell Phone Stipend, and Wifi Stipend (Only remote Nerds are eligible for the Wifi Stipend)\n\nWork from home equipment stipend and co-working space subsidy (Only remote Nerds are eligible for these stipends)\n\nHave Some Fun! (Nerds are fun, too)\nNerd-led group initiatives - Employee Resource Groups for Parents, Diversity, and Inclusion, Women, LGBTQIA, and other communities\n\nHackathons and team events across all teams and departments\n\nCompany-wide events like NerdLove (employee appreciation) and our annual Charity Auction\n\nOur Nerds love to make an impact by paying it forward - Take 8 hours of volunteer time off per quarter and donate to your favorite causes with a company match\n\nPlan for your future (And when you retire on your island, remember the little people)\n401K with 4% company match\n\nBe the first to test and benefit from our new financial products and tools\n\nFinancial wellness, guidance, and unlimited access to a Certified Financial Planner (CFP) through Northstar\n\nDisability and Life Insurance with employer-paid premiums\n\nIf you are based in California, we encourage you to read this important information for California residents linked here.\nNerdWallet is committed to pursuing and hiring a diverse workforce and is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We prohibit discrimination and harassment on the basis of any characteristic protected by applicable federal, state, or local law, so all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment.\nNerdWallet will consider qualified applicants with a criminal history pursuant to the California Fair Chance Act and the San Francisco Fair Chance Act, which requires this notice, as well as the Los Angeles Fair Chance Act, which requires thisnotice.\nNerdWallet participates in the Department of Homeland Security U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services E-Verify program for all US locations. For more information, please see:\nE-Verify Participation Poster (English+Spanish/Español)\n\nRight to Work Poster (English) / (Spanish/Español)","description_format":"text","description_chars":8166,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":5,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":{"level":"bachelor","optional":false},"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":["401k plan","Life insurance"],"hiring_locations":[{"name":"United States","iso":"US","kind":"country"}],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Artificial Intelligence","Personal Finance Apps & Education","Financial Comparison & Loan Marketplaces","Financial News & Media"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-11-04T21:28:26Z"}],"visa":[{"country":"US","licensed_sponsor":true,"adverts_offering_sponsorship_24m":0,"sanctioned_now":false,"evidence":"H-1B filings in 12 months: 9 · green card filings: 5","filings_12m":9,"filings_prev_12m":16,"green_card_filings_12m":5,"median_offered_wage_usd":177857,"route":null,"cap_exempt":false,"checked_at":"2026-11-08T10:45:15+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":4}],"liveness":{"score":90,"band":"hot","label":"Hiring now","p_open":1,"p_active":0.903,"p_room":1,"age_days":3,"expected_fill_days":21,"reasons":["conf:3","velocity","win:early"],"computed_at":"2026-11-08T05:47:12Z"},"pay":{"stated_usd_annual":252000,"is_top_pay":true},"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/nerdwallet-senior-data-scientist-applied-ml","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/nerdwallet-senior-data-scientist-applied-ml.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-11-08T11:48:30Z","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":25263,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-11-09T00:00:00Z"}},"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":7244},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=7244"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fnerdwallet-senior-data-scientist-applied-ml"},{"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%2Fnerdwallet-senior-data-scientist-applied-ml"},{"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%2Fnerdwallet-senior-data-scientist-applied-ml"},{"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/nerdwallet-senior-data-scientist-applied-ml\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fnerdwallet-senior-data-scientist-applied-ml"}],"agent":{"mcp":"https://alion.io/mcp/jobs","mcp_open":"https://alion.io/mcp/open","next":[{"tool":"get_job","arguments":{"id":3770638}},{"tool":"search_jobs","arguments":{"company":"nerdwallet.com","detail":"compact"}},{"tool":"match_people","arguments":{"job_id":3770638},"note":"people open to offers who fit this vacancy"}],"note":"The same data through MCP tools: https://alion.io/mcp/open needs no sign-in (compact searches, postings, people); https://alion.io/mcp with an Alion account has everything. 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