Senior Data Scientist

Forward Financing is a financial technology company based in Boston, Massachusetts with team members throughout the United States, Dominican Republic, and Canada. The company is on a mission to unlock the capital that fuels small businesses across America. Recognized as a Best Place to Work by Built In Boston and certified as a Great Place To Work®, Forward is investing in its employees, technology, and customer experience – with long-term success in mind every step of the way.

We are seeking a Senior Data Scientist to execute end-to-end data science initiatives, transforming complex data into strategic decisions and automated solutions across the organization. In this role, you will combine advanced modeling skills with a deep understanding of the business needs to build, deploy and scale advanced analytical solutions that deliver measurable impact across all business domains at Forward Financing.

In this role you will:

• Design, develop and deploy advanced statistical or machine learning models related to credit risk, pricing, collections, fraud, and other high-impact business use cases that drive better data-driven decisions

• Execute the full model lifecycle, from initial data discovery and feature engineering to deployment, monitoring and iterative improvement

• Partner with cross-functional teams including Portfolio Strategy, Collections, Engineering, Product, Underwriting, and Sales to integrate models into our applications and ensure they function seamlessly

• Communicate complex technical concepts, model results, and business implications to both technical and non-technical stakeholders

• Develop production-grade code and contribute to internal toolkits, documentation, and peer code review to ensure high-quality delivery

• Build and maintain production machine learning pipelines and monitoring systems to ensure models are reliable, scalable and continuously improving

Why you should apply:

• Mission driven company: Forward is a trusted source of fast, flexible funding for small businesses that have often been underserved by traditional financing options. When you join the team, you will help ensure all small businesses have access to the financial support they need to succeed.

• Flexibility is a top priority: Our employees are empowered to choose where they want to work (whether that’s from home, in the office, or a combination of both) with flexible hours.

Role Requirements:

• 5+ years of hands-on model development and deployment experience using advanced statistical and machine learning techniques such as generalized linear models, gradient boosting and deep learning

• Experience in fintech or financial services, specifically building Collections models, is highly preferred.

• Proficient in Python, SQL and Git

• Experience with workflow orchestration tools, such as Metaflow

• Experience deploying and managing models within a cloud platform (AWS, Sagemaker)

• Strong foundation in statistics and machine learning, and knowledge of experimental design

• Excellent communication skills

• Strong critical thinking and problem-solving ability

• Nice to have experience: cloud data warehouses (e.g. Snowflake, Databricks), Metaflow, Arize, 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.

Compensation:
Annual Salary: $153,000 - $195,000 USD
Annual Bonus: You have the potential to earn an additional 10% annual bonus.

At Forward Financing, we're committed to fair and transparent compensation. We believe in providing a compensation package that recognizes your skills, experience, and the unique value you bring to our team. We take a market-based approach to pay, regularly reviewing benchmark data to ensure our compensation remains competitive, equitable, and aligned with our performance-driven culture.

Final offers are determined by a variety of factors, including the candidate's qualifications, relevant experience, specific skills, and internal equity. This approach ensures that our compensation is competitive and equitable. Your recruiter will provide specific details on the expected base and variable earnings as it pertains to this specific role.

Total Rewards:

Additionally, we offer a comprehensive total rewards package, including but not limited to: medical, dental, vision, commuter benefits, a flexible time-off policy, paid parental leave, 401k match for US em