Director Decision Science

Empower • Overland Park, KS

1d • Hybrid

About The Position

Our vision for the future is based on the idea that transforming financial lives starts by giving our people the freedom to transform their own. We have a flexible work environment, and fluid career paths. We not only encourage but celebrate internal mobility. We also recognize the importance of purpose, well-being, and work-life balance. Within Empower and our communities, we work hard to create a welcoming and inclusive environment, and our associates dedicate thousands of hours to volunteering for causes that matter most to them. Chart your own path and grow your career while helping more customers achieve financial freedom. Empower Yourself. Applicants must be authorized to work for any employer in the U.S. We are unable to sponsor or take over sponsorship of an employment visa at this time, including CPT/OPT. Provides enterprise-level leadership for real-time decisioning and next-best-action (NBA) systems that translate predictive insights into governed, auditable decision policies. Owns the strategy, execution, and measurable business impact of NBA decisions and decision sequences delivered across omni-channel touchpoints through integrated systems and APIs, including lead routing to Sales and Service. Leads the end-to-end roadmap, design, implementation, and ongoing operation of the enterprise decision engine serving all prospects and existing clients. Accountable for decision quality, optimization rigor, fairness, privacy, and auditability while building and leading a high-performing team of decision science and technical product professionals.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Business, or a related field required; MBA or advanced degree preferred.
• 9+ years of experience in decision science, applied data science, optimization, or equivalent fields.
• 3+ years of experience leading managers or senior practitioners in a people management capacity.
• Proven leadership in the design, delivery, and governance of enterprise-scale, real-time decisioning and decision policy systems.
• Deep expertise in optimization and experimentation techniques, including uplift modeling, bandits, experimental design, generalized linear models, allocation models, and related approaches.
• Strong proficiency in SQL and Python, with the ability to guide technical standards and review work at scale.
• Experience directing teams that build or integrate real-time, API-driven decisioning platforms.
• Strong business and financial acumen, with demonstrated executive communication skills and ability to influence senior leaders.
• Strategic thinker capable of balancing near-term delivery with long-term platform and capability vision.
• Demonstrated success shipping and operating decision or rules engines in production, including integration with feature stores and model registries.
• Experience overseeing experimental design and measurement practices across teams.
• Strong intuition for end-customer needs and behaviors, and the ability to translate insights into scalable decision strategies.
• Demonstrated ability to navigate complex, matrixed organizations to drive enterprise priorities.
• Working curiosity and applied understanding of emerging artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities and their impact on decisioning, optimization, and governance.
• For remote and hybrid positions you will be required to provide reliable high-speed internet with a wired connection as well as a place in your home to work with limited disruption.
• You must have reliable connectivity from an internet service provider that is fiber, cable or DSL internet.
• Other necessary computer equipment, will be provided.
• You may be required to work in the office if you do not have an adequate home work environment and the required internet connection.

Responsibilities

• Define and own the enterprise decisioning charter, objectives, operating model, guardrails (e.g., prospect and existing client fatigue, fairness, privacy), and KPI trees aligned to strategic business outcomes.
• Establish and govern the enterprise roadmap for the decision engine, including prioritization of NBA and lead-routing initiatives in partnership with Sales, Marketing, Product, Technology, and Client Services. Balance delivery commitments, technical constraints, and strategic trade-offs while communicating clear timing, dependencies, and risks to executive stakeholders.
• Maintain end-to-end accountability for the architecture, build, performance, governance, and lifecycle management of a real-time decision engine powering NBA decisions and decision sequences at scale.
• Direct teams responsible for translating enterprise goals (e.g., sales growth, engagement, retention) into eligibility schemas, fatigue and frequency limits, fairness constraints, reward functions, and constrained optimization approaches (assignment, pacing, routing).
• Oversee the design and deployment of decision policies, optimization frameworks, and sequencing logic that deliver the best action or action sequence for each prospect or existing client.
• Establish standards for experimentation, rollout, and risk management, incorporating canaries, bandit approaches, A/B testing, and statistically sound ship/iterate/stop decisions.
• Partner with personalization, experimentation, and analytics leaders to co-own experimentation strategy, learning agendas, and measurement frameworks.
• Lead cross-functional technology delivery by setting requirements and direction for real-time decision APIs, integrations, rules engines, data models, and logging frameworks.
• Ensure enterprise standards for versioning, audit trails, rollback and disaster recovery plans, incident response, and service-level agreements.
• Maintain canonical decision metrics, fairness and eligibility checks, transparent decision logs, and audit-ready documentation to support reporting, regulatory review, and internal governance.
• Build, lead, and develop a team of Decision Science and Technical Product Management leaders; set expectations, coach performance, and grow enterprise decisioning capabilities.

Benefits

• We offer an array of diverse and inclusive benefits regardless of where you are in your career. We believe that providing our employees with the means to lead healthy balanced lives results in the best possible work performance.
• Medical, dental, vision and life insurance
• Retirement savings – 401(k) plan with generous company matching contributions (up to 6%), financial advisory services, potential company discretionary contribution, and a broad investment lineup
• Tuition reimbursement up to $5,250/year
• Business-casual environment that includes the option to wear jeans
• Generous paid time off upon hire – including a paid time off program plus ten paid company holidays and three floating holidays each calendar year
• Paid volunteer time — 16 hours per calendar year
• Leave of absence programs – including paid parental leave, paid short- and long-term disability, and Family and Medical Leave (FMLA)
• Business Resource Groups (BRGs) – BRGs facilitate inclusion and collaboration across our business internally and throughout the communities where we live, work and play. BRGs are open to all.

What This Job Offers

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