Lead Data Scientist - Remote Position at Forward Financing

About the Role

We are seeking a Lead Data Scientist to join our team at Forward Financing. This remote Lead Data Scientist position offers an exciting opportunity to drive end-to-end data science initiatives, transforming complex data into strategic decisions and automated solutions across the organization. You will operate at the intersection of high-level technical execution and cross-functional business partnership, building and scaling advanced analytical solutions that deliver measurable impact across all business domains.

What You'll Do

• Design, develop, and deploy advanced statistical or machine learning models for credit risk, pricing, collections, fraud, and other high-impact business use cases.
• Lead end-to-end delivery of data science initiatives from problem framing and model design through deployment, monitoring, and ongoing maintenance.
• Partner with cross-functional teams including Portfolio Strategy, Engineering, Product, Underwriting, Sales, and Collections to integrate models into our applications.
• Define and set standards for model development, code quality, and documentation; guide technical design decisions across the team.
• Act as a technical mentor to team members, fostering a culture of continuous learning and rigorous analytical standards.
• Communicate complex technical concepts and business implications to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Build and maintain production machine learning pipelines and monitoring systems to ensure models are reliable, scalable, and continuously improving.

Requirements

• 8+ years of hands-on model development and deployment experience using advanced statistical and machine learning techniques.
• Deep experience in building and deploying credit risk models, especially underwriting models, in the fintech, lending, or financial services industry is highly preferred.
• Expert in Python, SQL, and Git.
• Experience deploying and managing models within a cloud platform (AWS, Sagemaker).
• Strong foundation in statistics and machine learning, and knowledge of experimental design.
• Excellent project management and communication skills.
• Strong critical thinking and problem-solving ability.

Nice to Have

• Experience with cloud data warehouses (e.g., Snowflake, Databricks), Arize, Metaflow, Sagemaker, decision engines (e.g., Taktile), feature stores (e.g., Tecton).
• Bachelor's degree in Financial/Applied Math, Operations Research, Economics, and/or Statistics. Masters/PhD is a plus.

What We Offer

• Annual Salary: $174,000 - $220,000 USD.
• Annual Bonus: Potential to earn an additional 12% annual bonus.
• Comprehensive total rewards package including medical, dental, vision, commuter benefits, flexible time-off policy, paid parental leave, 401k match for US employees, wellness reimbursement, volunteering days, and charitable donation match.
• Flexibility to choose where you want to work (home, office, or a combination of both) with flexible hours.
• Opportunity to work in a mission-driven company that values financial opportunity for underserved small businesses.