Director of Data Science, Credit

Mission Lane

11d•$184,000 - $219,000•Remote

About The Position

Mission Lane is combining the power of data, technology, and exceptional service to pave a clear way forward for millions of people on the path to financial success. By attracting top talent and leveraging cutting-edge technology, we’re enabling people to unlock real financial progress. We're looking for a Director of Data Science to own the strategy and technical leadership behind Mission Lane's credit acquisition models, reporting to the Sr. Director, Data Science. The impact you'll make: Someone hits submit on a credit card application, hopeful this is the “yes” that lets them start building toward something: a car, a home, a little more room to breathe. You'll lead the strategy and the team behind decisions like that one. Keeping every decision accurate and fair as circumstances shift makes this work interesting and rewarding, every day. Mission Lane is young, but we’ve landed in an exciting, stable stretch of maturation: still moving toward what we’re going to become, with plenty of room for you to help shape it.

Requirements

Has a PhD in a quantitative field and 5+ years of experience in a related role, or a BS/MS in a quantitative field and 8+ years of experience in a related role
Has created, deployed, and managed supervised learning models in a production environment for high-impact applications
Has direct experience hiring, coaching, and developing data scientists as their manager
Has applied data science to credit risk, underwriting, or another long-horizon, regulated prediction problem, such as insurance
Writes tested, reviewed, reproducible code, for data pipelines and model training alike, and works fluently in the Python data stack
Able to travel ~4-6+ times per year for high quality in-person collaboration

Nice To Haves

Direct experience in consumer lending; credit card acquisitions, specifically
Familiarity with Mission Lane's broader ML tooling ecosystem, including Chalk, BentoML, or DVC
Experience partnering directly with executive leadership on modeling strategy

Responsibilities

Own Mission Lane's credit acquisition modeling strategy, translating the company's growth and underwriting goals into a roadmap that balances approval rates, portfolio performance, and fair lending practice
Provide technical leadership for the data scientists building and maintaining acquisition models, setting the bar for model design, code quality, and production rigor
Oversee model risk and monitoring practices that keep acquisition models compliant, explainable, and accurate as underwriting conditions change
Ensure cross-functional alignment with Credit Risk, Portfolio, Data Engineering, and company leadership on how acquisition modeling fits into Mission Lane's broader risk appetite
Manage a growing scope as acquisitions-adjacent growth initiatives roll into the team, giving you room to shape how the function expands