Senior Data Scientist

Company Description

Assent is the leading solution for supply chain sustainability tailored for the world’s top-tier, sustainability-driven manufacturers. Hidden risks riddle supply chains, many of which weren't built with sustainability in mind. That's where we step in. With insights from experts, Assent is the tool manufacturers trust for comprehensive sustainability.

We are proud to announce that Assent has crossed the US$100M ARR milestone, granting us Centaur Status. This accomplishment, reached just 8 years following our Series A, makes us the first and only Certified B Corporation in North America's SaaS sustainability industry to celebrate this milestone.

Our journey from $5 million to US$100M ARR in just eight years has been marked by significant growth and achievements. With our $350 million US funding led by Vista Equity Partners, we're poised for even greater expansion and are on the lookout for outstanding team members to join our mission.

Hybrid Work Model

At Assent, we proudly embrace a remote-first work model, valuing the flexibility and autonomy it provides our team. We also acknowledge the intangible benefits of occasional in-person workdays. For team members situated within 50 kms/31 miles of our five global offices in Ottawa, Eldoret, Penang, Columbus, Pune and Amsterdam, you can expect to come into the office one day a week. Similarly, those near our co-working spaces in Nairobi and Toronto are encouraged to work onsite once a month.

Job Description

We are seeking a Senior Data Scientist with deep expertise in Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Large Language Model (LLM) fine-tuning to join our AI and Machine Learning team. This role is ideal for a highly skilled individual with a PhD or Masters in Machine Learning, AI, or a related field, coupled with industry experience in developing and deploying NLP-driven AI solutions.

As a Senior Data Scientist, you will lead the development, tuning, and maintenance of cutting-edge AI models, mentor junior data scientists, and drive innovation in AI-powered solutions. You will collaborate closely with cross-functional teams, transforming complex business challenges into intelligent, data-driven products and solutions. Additionally, you will play a key role in analyzing large-scale datasets, uncovering insights, and ensuring data-driven decision-making in our AI initiatives.

 The Senior Data Scientist is a data-oriented, out-of-the-box thinker who is passionate about data, machine learning, understanding the business, and driving business value.

• Lead the research, development, and fine-tuning of state-of-the-art LLMs and NLP models for real-world applications.
• Perform in-depth data analysis to extract actionable insights, improve model performance, and inform AI strategy.
• Design, implement, and evaluate LLM based systems to ensure model performance, efficiency, and scalability.
• Mentor and coach junior data scientists, fostering best practices in NLP, deep learning, and MLOps.
• Deploy and monitor models in production, ensuring robust performance, fairness, and explainability in AI applications.
• Stay ahead of advancements in NLP, generative AI, and ethical AI practices, incorporating them into our solutions.
• Ensure compliance with Responsible AI principles, aligning with industry standards and regulations such as the EU AI Act and Canada’s Voluntary Code of Conduct on Responsible AI.
• Collaborate with engineering and product teams to integrate AI-driven features into SaaS products.
• Be curious and not afraid to try unconventional ideas to find solutions to difficult problems
• Apply engineering principles to proactively identify issues, develop solutions, and recommend improvements
• Be self-motivated and highly proactive at exploring new technologies
• Find creative solutions to challenges involving data that is difficult to obtain, complex or ambiguous.
• Manage multiple concurrent projects, priorities and timelines

Qualifications

• PhD (preferred) or Masters in Machine Learning, AI, NLP, or a related field, with a strong publication record in top-tier conferences and journals.
• Industry experience (2+ for PhD, 5+ for Masters) in building and deploying NLP/LLM solutions at scale.
• Proven ability to analyze large datasets, extract meaningful insights, and drive data-informed decision-making.
• Strong expertise in preparing data for fine-tuning and optimizing LLMs.
• Solid understanding of data engineering concepts, including data pipelines, feature engineering, and vector databases.
• Proficiency in deep learning frameworks (e.g., PyTorch, TensorFlow) and NLP libraries (e.g., Hugging Face Transformers, spaCy).
• Solid working knowledge of AWS systems and services; comfort working with SageMaker, Bedrock, EC2, S3, Lambda, Terraform.
• Familiar  with MLOps best practices, including model versioning, monitoring, and CI/CD pipelines.
• Excellent organizational skills and ability to manage multiple priorities and timelines

Additional Information

Life at Assent

Wellness: We believe that you and your family’s well being is important. As a result, we offer vacation time that increases with tenure, comprehensive benefits packages (details vary by country), life leave days and more.

Financial Benefits: It’s not all about the money – well, it’s a little about the money. We understand that financial health is important and we offer a competitive base salary, a corporate bonus program, retirement savings options and more.

Life at Assent: There is purpose beyond your work. We provide our team members with flexible work options, volunteer days and opportunities to get involved in corporate giving initiatives.

Lifelong Learning: At Assent, curiosity is not only valued but encouraged. You will receive professional development days that are available to you the day you start.

At Assent, we are committed to growing and sustaining an environment where our team members feel included, valued, and heard. Our diversity and equal opportunity practices are guided and championed by our Diversity and Inclusion Working Group and our Employee Resource Groups (ERGs).

Our commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion includes recruiting and retaining team members from diverse backgrounds and experiences, and fostering a culture of belonging where all team members are included, treated with dignity and respect, promoted on their merits, and placed in positions to contribute to business success.

If you require assistance or accommodation throughout any part of the interview and selection process, please contact talent@assent.com and we will be happy to help.