Lead Data Scientist - NLP
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Role Description
Allianz have an exciting opportunity for a Lead Data Scientist to join the team in Guildford on a hybrid basis.
As a Lead Data Scientist - NLP at Allianz Commercial, you will work closely with our team of data scientists, data engineers, ML engineers and analysts in designing and implementing solutions that extract insights from unstructured text data. You will have the opportunity to work on diverse projects, ranging from topic modelling and entity recognition to text generation and conversational AI. This role requires strong technical skills, a solid foundation in machine learning, and a passion for solving complex NLP problems.
This is a Hybrid role based out of the Birmingham office
Salary Information
Circa £70,000 per year
Pay is based on relevant experience, skills for the role, and location. Salary is only one part of our total reward package.
About You
- Research, design, and develop solutions using NLP models and algorithms to extract insights from unstructured text data.
- Collaborate closely with data engineers to pre-process and clean text data, ensuring data quality and compatibility with NLP models.
- Apply machine learning and deep learning techniques to tasks such as sentiment analysis, text classification, entity recognition, named entity recognition, and text generation.
- Build and leverage knowledge graphs to enhance language understanding and enable more advanced NLP applications.
- Develop methods to integrate and utilize LLMs, such as GPT (Azure Open AI), BERT or open source foundational LLM’s (Llama2), for natural language understanding and generation tasks.
- Conduct thorough exploratory data analysis to gain insights into text data characteristics and develop effective pre-processing strategies.
- Collaborate with data engineers and analysts to integrate NLP models into our data pipelines and systems.
- Evaluate and benchmark different NLP algorithms, knowledge graph frameworks, and LLM architectures, and recommend the most suitable approaches for specific use cases.
- Stay up to date with the latest research and advancements in the field of NLP, knowledge graphs, and LLMs, and proactively apply them to enhance our NLP capabilities.
- Communicate findings and insights to both technical and non-technical stakeholders through reports, visualizations, and presentations.
- Collaborate with cross-functional teams to define project goals, requirements, and success metrics.
Essential Skills
- Mentor and provide guidance to junior team members, fostering their growth and development in NLP.
- Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Data Science, or a related field. A combination of education and relevant experience will also be considered.
- Proven experience as a Data Scientist with a strong focus on RAG. Knowledge of leveraging Azure Open AI and various foundational LLM’s for Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) architecture including opensource.
- Experience with LLM architecture (e.g., Transformer, GANs, VAEs), Fine-tuning PEFT/LoRA, Context embedding, Vector database technologies and Semantic Search techniques & tools.
- Proficiency in programming languages such as Python and experience with NLP libraries such as NLTK, spaCy, Transformers, Hugging Face, BERT and Gen AI frameworks like Llangchain. Llamaindex etc.
- Strong problem-solving skills and ability to handle complex NLP challenges.
- Excellent communication and collaboration skills, with the ability to work effectively in cross-functional teams.
Desirable Skills
- Data extraction from PDF documents leveraging python packages like Pypdf, Camelot and OCR based services like Azure Document intelligence would be advantageous.
- Familiarity with Azure cloud platform and distributed computing frameworks (e.g., Apache Spark) is a plus.
- Experience in building and working with knowledge graphs, such as Neo4j, or GraphDB would be desirable.
What We Will Offer You
Recognised and rewarded for a job well done, we have a range of flexible benefits for you to choose from- so you can pick a package that’s perfect for you. We also offer flexible working options, global career opportunities across the wider Allianz Group, and fantastic career development and training. That’s on top of enjoying all the benefits you’d expect from the world’s number one insurance brand, including:
- Flexible buy/sell holiday options
- Hybrid working
- Annual performance related bonus
- Contributory pension scheme
- Development days
- A discount up to 50% on a range of insurance products including car, home and pet
- Retail discounts
- Volunteering days
Our Ways of Working
Do you need flexibility with the hours you work? Let us know as part of your application and if it’s right for our customers, our business and for you, then we’ll do everything we can to make it happen. Here at Allianz, we are signatories of the ABIs flexible working charter. We believe in supporting hybrid work patterns, which balance the needs of our customers, with your personal circumstances and our business requirements. Our aim with this is to help innovation, creativity, and you to thrive - Your work life balance is important to us.
Integrity, Fairness, Inclusion & Trust
At Allianz, we believe in fostering an inclusive workforce and are proud to be an equal opportunity employer. Our commitment to equal opportunities, gender equity, and balanced gender representation, is demonstrated by our numerous accreditations: EDGE certified for gender inclusion, Women in Finance Charter members, Disability Confident employer, Stonewall Diversity Champion, Business in the Community’s Race at Work Charter signatories, and Armed Forces Covenant gold standard employer.
Accessible Application for All
As part of the Disability Confident Scheme, we support candidates with disabilities or long-term health conditions through the Offer an Interview Scheme, for those meeting the essential skills for the role.
Contact our Resourcing team to opt into this scheme or for assistance with your application, including larger text, hard copies, or spoken applications.
For any inquiries or to submit your application, please contact: Benjamin Edwards
Closing date 12th September 2025
We reserve the right to close the advert early if we reach enough applications.
If you are an at-risk candidate facing potential redeployment, please include this information in your CV
80767 | Data & AI | Professional | Non-Executive | Allianz UK | Full-Time | Permanent
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