Data Scientist

Job Title: Data Scientist

Job Summary:

The Data Scientist is a hands-on individual-contributor role focused on building agentic AI solutions that automate manual, repetitive work for business teams-bringing efficiency and speed to business decisions. Working within NVA’s Data & Analytics team in close collaboration with business stakeholders, the Data Scientist accelerates AI solutioning and delivery while reporting to the Senior Manager, AI. Working with advanced AI platforms such as Anthropic’s Claude, OpenAI, and Google Gemini, the Data Scientist designs, builds, and safely deploys agentic solutions-following the standards and best practices established by the Data & Analytics organization and partnering closely with IT Security on any externally facing build. Beyond agentic automation, this role applies statistics and machine learning to customer data, building data science models such as customer lifetime value, client segmentation, next best action, and pricing. This role is central to NVA’s mission of delivering excellent, accessible veterinary care by turning manual processes into trusted, automated, decision-ready capabilities.

Reports To: Senior Manager, AI

About: National Veterinary Associates is one of the largest and most respected communities of veterinary hospitals in the world, operating nearly 1,000 hospitals in North America, including in all 50 states, and caring for 8,000,000+ animals annually. NVA is backed by JAB Holding, a leading private equity firm. Each person who joins NVA is motivated by our mission to provide excellent, accessible care to improve the lives of animals and the people who love them. NVA has been extremely successful over its 25+ year history and we’re very excited about our next chapter as we work toward our shared vision of revolutionizing the pet care experience to provide more fulfilling lives for pets, their companions, and our team.

What You’ll Be Doing (Key Responsibilities):

• Build agentic AI solutions that automate manual, repetitive processes for the business teams they support, improving efficiency and accelerating business decisions.
• Work hands-on with advanced AI platforms (Anthropic Claude, OpenAI, Google Gemini) to design and build agentic workflows, selecting the right models, tools, and frameworks for each use case.
• Own end-to-end architecture design for agentic solutions-components, integrations, data flows, guardrails, and safe-deployment patterns-and document architecture plans for each version of the build.
• Gather requirements directly from business stakeholders, translate business problems into technical solutions, and collaborate closely with them throughout design, build, and rollout.
• Follow the standards, best practices, and guardrails established by the Data & Analytics organization to ensure solutions are safe, compliant, maintainable, and consistent with enterprise AI practices.
• Partner closely with the IT Security team, keeping them informed and engaged on any externally facing agentic solution to ensure secure, compliant deployment.
• Maintain well-documented PRDs (product requirement documents) and architecture plans for every version of each solution build, keeping documentation current as solutions evolve.
• Perform dependency mapping across systems, data sources, models, and services to de-risk builds and ensure reliable integration.
• Own incident response for deployed solutions-monitoring, triage, root-cause analysis, and remediation-to keep agentic solutions reliable and trustworthy in production.
• Conduct detailed analysis of customer data and build data science / machine learning models-including customer lifetime value (LTV), client segmentation and classification, next best action, and pricing models-to drive better business decisions.
• Communicate progress, risks, dependencies, and outcomes to the right stakeholders, including the Senior Manager, AI and business stakeholders, ensuring alignment throughout delivery.
• Continuously evaluate emerging AI models, agentic frameworks, and tooling, applying them to improve the speed, quality, and safety of solutions delivered to business teams.

Minimum Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities (Qualifications):

• 4+ years of hands-on experience building AI/ML or software solutions in production, including recent experience developing LLM-powered or agentic applications.
• Strong programming skills (e.g., Python) and experience integrating with advanced AI platforms and APIs such as Anthropic Claude, OpenAI, and Google Gemini-including prompt engineering, tool/function calling, retrieval, and agent orchestration frameworks.
• Solid foundation in statistics and machine learning, with demonstrated experience building applied models such as customer lifetime value, segmentation/classification, next best action, propensity, or pricing-and comfort with the full modeling lifecycle from data analysis through deployment.
• Experience designing solution architecture and integrating with enterprise data platforms, APIs, and cloud services (e.g., Azure), with an understanding of AI safety, responsible-AI, and secure-deployment practices and a track record of partnering with security teams on externally facing applications.
• Excellent documentation and communication skills-able to produce clear PRDs and architecture plans, gather requirements directly from stakeholders, and deliver iteratively in close collaboration with business stakeholders.

Location: Remote-friendly. Must be able to collaborate across U.S. time zones.

Travel: Minimal. May be once a quarter for stakeholder meetings.

Compensation & Benefits: NVA offers a competitive compensation package commensurate with experience, including base salary, annual performance bonus, comprehensive health benefits (medical, dental, vision), 401(k) with company match, generous PTO, and professional development opportunities.

Salary: $81,500 - $112,250

AIP: 8%

FSLA Status: Exempt