Data Scientist - New Applications

iwoca
City of London
3 weeks ago
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iwoca – Data Scientist – New Applications Team


Hybrid in London, United Kingdom


Company overview

iwoca builds a world where every small business has the power to thrive. Since 2012, we revolutionise how businesses access finance, turning a lengthy, frustrating process into a fast, flexible, and effective funding solution.


Role responsibilities

  • Design, implement and review experiments that test the impact of giving instant decisions to different customer segments.
  • Collaborate with team lead and other teams to develop an optimised strategy for deciding which documents to request from customers, building, implementing and maintaining predictive models.
  • Experiment with integrating an LLM chat assistant into the sign‑up journey, optimising for conversion and data quality.
  • Improve and maintain time series models that predict loan issuance numbers and other financial metrics.
  • Champion analytical rigour within the team, ensuring experimental designs are correctly defined, models are optimised for impact and results are evaluated rigorously and without bias.
  • Mentor and guide data and product analysts on the team.

Required qualifications – Essential

  • Strong problem‑solving skills in probability and statistics, ideally from a quantitative background (e.g., Mathematics, Physics, Statistics or similar fields).
  • Ability to understand business context and translate data into actionable insights that guide decisions.
  • Understanding of experimental design.
  • Proficiency with data manipulation and modelling tools, e.g. pandas, statsmodels, R.
  • Ability to take ownership of tasks and drive projects forward, developing towards end‑to‑end responsibility.
  • Clear written and verbal communication, adapting technical detail to suit different audiences.

Bonus qualifications

  • Proficiency in Python, our primary programming language.
  • Machine learning model development and evaluation experience.
  • Experience with SQL and business intelligence tools such as Looker.
  • Understanding of Bayesian statistics.
  • Experience building or maintaining data pipelines. Snowflake/dbt experience is particularly valuable.
  • Experience using LLM APIs in a production environment.

Compensation

£70,000 – £90,000. Include salary goals with your application.


Benefits & culture

  • Flexible working hours.
  • Medical insurance from Vitality, including discounted gym membership.
  • A private GP service for you, your partner and your dependents.
  • 25 days’ holiday per year, an extra day off for your birthday, the option to buy or sell an additional five days of annual leave, and unlimited unpaid leave.
  • A one‑month, fully paid sabbatical after four years.
  • Instant access to external counselling and therapy sessions for team members that need emotional or mental health support.
  • 3% pension contributions on total earnings.
  • An employee equity incentive scheme.
  • Generous parental leave and a nursery tax benefit scheme to help you save money.
  • Electric car scheme and cycle to work scheme.
  • Two company retreats a year.
  • A learning and development budget for everyone.
  • Company‑wide talks with internal and external speakers.
  • Access to learning platforms like Treehouse.

Location & travel

Hybrid in London, United Kingdom. Offices in London, Leeds, Berlin and Frankfurt.


Application & hiring

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