Senior Data Scientist (Peoria, IL or Chicago, IL)

RLI Insurance•Peoria, IL

13d•Hybrid

About The Position

We’re not like other insurance companies. From our specialty products to our business model, our culture to our results — we’re different. Different is who we are, and how we work, interact, deliver and succeed together. Creating a different and better insurance experience doesn’t just happen. It takes focus and a shared passion for going beyond the expected to forge relationships and deliver care that makes a difference. This approach rises from and is supported by our talented, ethical and smart team of employee owners united around a single purpose: to work alongside our customers and partners when they need us, in unexpected ways, with exceptional results. Apply today to make a difference with us. RLI is a Glassdoor Best Places to Work company with a strong, successful background. For decades, our financial track record has been stellar — a testament to our culture and validation of our reputation as an excellent underwriting company. Role Overview We’re hiring a mid-level Data Scientist to play a foundational role in shaping how AI/ML is applied across our Personal Umbrella Policy (PUP) and E&S Property lines of business. This individual will work hands-on to design, build, deploy and maintain curated data and analytical models within Snowflake, collaborating closely with our product, actuarial, analyst and engineering teams. You’ll own the full model lifecycle—from experimentation and feature engineering to deployment, monitoring, and retraining—while contributing to the development of a repeatable, scalable data science foundation at RLI.

Requirements

3–5 years of hands-on experience in applied data science or machine learning roles.
Proficiency in Python (e.g., scikit-learn, XGBoost, pandas) and SQL.
Experience developing and deploying models in Snowflake using Snowpark, Cortex, or similar cloud-native tools.
Strong understanding of supervised learning, feature engineering, and model performance evaluation.
Proven ability to work cross-functionally with both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
Excellent problem-solving, communication, and documentation skills.
In-office requirement of 3 days minimum in our Peoria or Chicago office.

Nice To Haves

Background in insurance, risk modeling, or financial services.
Experience working in environments with governed data platforms and production ML workflows.
Exposure to MLOps practices, model versioning, and drift monitoring.

Responsibilities

Design, create, document and maintain user-friendly and purpose-built data products for use by models and non-technical end users.
Develop, train, and deploy models using Snowflake Cortex, Snowpark, and integrated Python execution.
Own the end-to-end model lifecycle: experimentation, feature engineering, validation, production deployment, and monitoring.
Work closely with our underwriting, claim, actuarial, and analyst teams to translate business needs into data science solutions.
Design, create, document and maintain user-friendly and purpose-built data products for use by models and non-technical end users.
Partner with data engineering to ensure the availability and readiness of Snowflake-based datasets for modeling and inference.
Contribute to the development of model governance, reusability standards, and operational monitoring frameworks.
Stay current on Snowflake’s evolving capabilities to ensure model development aligns with platform best practices.
Assist in building a shared foundation for data science best practices and help inform future tooling and infrastructure investments.

Benefits

Annual bonus plans
Employee stock ownership plan (ESOP)
401(k) — automatic 3% company contribution
Annual 401k and ESOP profit-sharing contributions (Up to 15% of eligible earnings)
Paid time off (PTO) and holidays
Paid volunteer time off (VTO) to support our communities
Parental and family care leave
Flexible & hybrid work arrangements
Fitness center discounts and free virtual fitness platform
Employee assistance program
Comprehensive medical, dental and vision benefits
Flexible spending and health savings accounts
2x base salary for group life and AD&D insurance
Voluntary life, critical illness, & accident insurance for purchase
Short-term and long-term disability benefits
Training & certification opportunities
Tuition reimbursement
Education bonuses