Staff Data Scientist

Self Financial • Austin, TX

13h • Hybrid

About The Position

Self Financial is a venture-backed FinTech company focused on economic inclusion and financial resilience by helping people build credit and savings. The Credit Analytics team develops predictive models that support credit and lending decisions and works with Risk, Finance, Product, and Engineering to improve underwriting, pricing, and customer credit management.

The Staff Data Scientist will design, build, and validate models, partner with Engineering to deploy them into the decisioning engine, and monitor their performance after launch. The role emphasizes investigating model behavior, measuring and communicating business impact, and translating business questions into modeling problems and recommendations. As a senior contributor in a small company, the position also sets technical standards through code and model reviews and mentors analysts and data scientists.

The role is based in Austin, Texas, with a hybrid or remote work arrangement. Candidates must be U.S. citizens or permanent residents; visa sponsorship is not available. New hires must pass a background check.

Requirements

• At least 8 years of professional data scientist experience.
• Strong Python skills and a record of building predictive models.
• Statistical rigor, demonstrated through at least one accomplishment on the applicant's resume.
• Ability to quantify business impact, including in dollars and percentages.
• Curiosity and a habit of investigating context and asking why.
• Clear communication with technical and non-technical audiences.
• Experience taking models from development to production.
• Must be a U.S. citizen or permanent resident; visa sponsorship is not available.
• Must successfully pass a background check.

Nice To Haves

• Experience in credit and lending; fintech experience is a plus.
• Experience working with third-party data vendors.
• Experience at a small or scaling company with end-to-end ownership of work.
• Comfort moving between hands-on modeling, stakeholder partnership, and mentoring.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and validate predictive models in Python for credit and lending decisions.
• Partner with Engineering to deploy models into the decisioning engine and monitor them after launch.
• Investigate data and model behavior until the explanations are well supported.
• Measure and communicate the business impact of work in dollars and percentages.
• Work with Risk, Finance, Product, and other stakeholders to translate business questions into modeling problems and recommendations.
• Evaluate and work with data vendors and tools.
• Set the team's technical bar through code and model reviews.
• Mentor analysts and data scientists.

Benefits

• Generous health, dental, and vision insurance coverage.
• Employer-paid life and disability benefits and cost-containment resources.
• Hybrid work arrangement.
• Flexible vacation.
• Company performance-based bonuses.
• Paid parental leave.
• Company equity in the form of stock options.
• Education reimbursement program.
• Relocation bonus to move to Austin.
• Gym membership options through ClassPass or monthly reimbursement.
• Lunchdrop stipend.
• Paid parking.
• ERG and inclusion opportunities.
• Casual dress code.
• Team-building events and activities.
• Referral program.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior
• Education Level: No Education Listed