Director, Data Science/ML

CookUnity • Toronto, ON

6d • CA$210,000 - CA$250,000

About The Position

CookUnity is seeking a Director, Data Science/ML to lead the company's next phase of product innovation through advanced data science capabilities. This role involves building the ML and experimentation foundation for personalized, intelligent product experiences at scale. The Director will own the strategic vision for data science's impact on the product roadmap, build and lead a team focused on predictive modeling, personalization, experimentation, and emerging ML capabilities to enhance customer engagement, retention, and lifetime value. This is a high-impact, hands-on role for a strategic thinker.

Requirements

• 10+ years of experience in data science, with at least 5 years in leadership roles managing data scientists or ML engineers.
• Proven track record building and deploying ML models in production, particularly in personalization, recommendation systems, or predictive modeling.
• Deep expertise in experimentation and causal inference, including A/B testing, incrementality measurement, and statistical rigor.
• Strong product sense and business acumen—ability to identify high-impact opportunities and translate them into data science initiatives.
• Experience in consumer tech, e-commerce, or marketplace businesses where personalization and user engagement are critical.
• Excellent communication skills—ability to explain complex technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders and influence product strategy.
• Hands-on technical proficiency in Python, SQL, and modern ML frameworks (scikit-learn, PyTorch, TensorFlow).
• Experience with cloud-based data infrastructure (AWS, GCP, Snowflake) and ML Ops tools (MLflow, Airflow, Kubeflow).

Nice To Haves

• PhD or Master's degree in Computer Science, Statistics, Mathematics, or related quantitative field.
• Experience with real-time ML systems and feature stores.
• Background in recommendation systems or two-tower/multi-modal embeddings.
• Familiarity with generative AI and LLM applications in product contexts.
• Experience building data science teams from scratch or through periods of rapid growth.
• Prior work in subscription businesses or retention-focused products.
• Knowledge of modern product analytics tools (Amplitude, MixPanel, Looker).

Responsibilities

• Define and execute the product data science strategy, identifying opportunities where ML and predictive analytics can unlock step-change improvements in customer experience and business outcomes.
• Partner closely with Product, Growth, Engineering, and UX leadership to influence product roadmap with data-driven insights and forward-looking ML capabilities.
• Act as a thought leader on emerging data science techniques (personalization, recommendation systems, causal inference, generative AI) and their application to product problems.
• Translate complex product challenges into clear data science problems with measurable success criteria.
• Own the end-to-end ML lifecycle for product use cases: problem framing, feature development, model training, deployment, monitoring, and iteration.
• Partner with the Growth Data Science & Analytics team to align experimentation, measurement, and modeling efforts into a cohesive end-to-end data science ecosystem.
• Build, mentor, and scale a high-performing product data science team capable of delivering both strategic insights and production ML systems.
• Foster a culture of innovation, experimentation, and continuous learning within the data science organization.
• Create career development pathways that attract and retain top data science talent.
• Collaborate with Analytics Engineering to ensure seamless model deployment and monitoring.
• Own and evolve personalization and recommendation systems that drive engagement and conversion across the customer journey.
• Design and implement robust experimentation frameworks that enable rapid, high-quality product testing and learning.
• Develop causal inference methodologies to understand true incrementality of product changes.
• Ensure models are observable, explainable where needed, and continuously improved post-launch.
• Define product success metrics and measurement frameworks that align with business objectives.
• Build scalable dashboards and monitoring systems that provide real-time visibility into product performance.
• Conduct deep-dive analyses on user behavior patterns to uncover opportunities for product optimization.

Benefits

• Health Insurance coverage (Canada Life)
• Stock Options Plan granted on Day 1
• Eligible for a bi-annual performance bonus
• Flexible Paid Time Off
• 5- year Sabbatical: After 5 years with CookUnity, you get a 4-week paid sabbatical
• Paid Family leave
• Compassionate Leave: 3-5 days each time the need arises
• A generous amount of CookUnity credits to enjoy our amazing meals, added to your account, monthly.
• AI-forward workplace: enterprise access to ChatGPT and Claude to help you work smarter and grow faster.
• Wellness perks: fitness subsidies to build a healthy lifestyle
• Personalized Spanish coach

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Director