Lead Data Scientist

Independence Pet Group•Chicago, IL

20h•Hybrid

About The Position

Independence Pet Holdings (IPH) is a corporate holding company established in 2021, managing a diverse portfolio of pet health brands and services across North America. We aim to simplify the pet parenting journey and improve pet well-being through innovative solutions. Our multi-brand, omni-channel approach includes our own insurance carrier, brands, and partner brands. The IDEA (IPH Data & Enterprise Analytics) organization is responsible for building and operating the data platform, governance framework, and analytics capabilities that drive decision-making across all IPH brands. IDEA brings together experienced data leaders and engineers to create a unified, enterprise-scale data function, organized around Data Strategy & Planning, Infrastructure & Data Engineering, Enterprise Data Governance, and Analytics & Reporting. IDEA partners with teams across the organization to manage and activate data & analytics, enabling faster, smarter, and more informed decisions. We are seeking a Lead Data Scientist to join this organization. This role will lead the development and application of advanced data science and analytical solutions to drive insights in pricing, risk, customer, and operations for IPH’s pet insurance portfolio. While the focus is pet insurance, experience in e-commerce, subscription businesses, or other consumer-facing industries is valued, bringing diverse analytical approaches like LTV modeling, segmentation, A/B testing, and paid media analytics. The Lead Data Scientist will frame complex business problems, translate analytical findings into actionable insights, and collaborate with stakeholders in product, marketing, actuarial, and operations to drive data-informed decisions. Reporting to the Head of Analytics, this role will help shape the data science roadmap, champion best practices in experimentation and modeling, and contribute to building a strong analytical culture.

Requirements

6+ years of professional data science or advanced analytics experience with a BS/MS, or 4+ years of experience with a PhD in a quantitative field
Strong Python and SQL expertise
Experience with large-scale datasets, structured and unstructured
Familiarity with analytics engineering concepts or hands-on experience is a plus

Nice To Haves

Pricing, underwriting, or risk modeling experience
Experience in insurance or regulated industries
Experience with cloud-based platforms (Databricks, Snowflake, or similar) and notebook-based workflows
Experience with dbt (data build tool) or related data transformation approaches
Exposure to concepts common in P&C, ecommerce, subscription, or marketing analytics (LTV, segmentation, A/B testing, etc)

Responsibilities

Develop predictive and prescriptive models to support pricing, risk, customer, and operational decision-making across the pet insurance portfolio
Apply advanced statistical and machine learning techniques to a variety of business problems, including customer behavior, retention, and marketing performance
Mentor other data scientists and analytics talent as needed, and develop data science rigor and expertise across the organization
Partner with actuarial, product, and analytics teams to set data science goals and objectives and translate business questions into analytical solutions
Collaborate with engineering and analytics teams to deploy models into production and ensure scalable, maintainable solutions
Communicate insights and recommendations to technical and non-technical audiences, leveraging learnings from insurance and other consumer-facing industries