Principal Data Scientist

Company Description

NBCUniversal is one of the world's leading media and entertainment companies. We create world-class content, which we distribute across our portfolio of film, television, and streaming, and bring to life through our theme parks and consumer experiences. We own and operate leading entertainment and news brands, including NBC, NBC News, MSNBC, CNBC, NBC Sports, Telemundo, NBC Local Stations, Bravo, USA Network, and Peacock, our premium ad-supported streaming service. We produce and distribute premier filmed entertainment and programming through Universal Filmed Entertainment Group and Universal Studio Group, and have world-renowned theme parks and attractions through Universal Destinations & Experiences. NBCUniversal is a subsidiary of Comcast Corporation.

Our impact is rooted in improving the communities where our employees, customers, and audiences live and work. We have a rich tradition of giving back and ensuring our employees have the opportunity to serve their communities. We champion an inclusive culture and strive to attract and develop a talented workforce to create and deliver a wide range of content reflecting our world.

Comcast NBCUniversal has announced its intent to create a new publicly traded company ('SpinCo') comprised of most of NBCUniversal's cable television networks, including USA Network, CNBC, MSNBC, Oxygen, E!, SYFY and Golf Channel along with complementary digital assets Fandango, Rotten Tomatoes, GolfNow, GolfPass, and SportsEngine. The well-capitalized company will have significant scale as a pure-play set of assets anchored by leading news, sports and entertainment content. The spin-off is expected to be completed during 2025.

Job Description

The Media Group at NBCU supports a powerhouse collection of consumer-first brands including Peacock, NBC, Bravo, NBC Sports, and NBCU International. With unequalled scale, our teams make the most out of every opportunity to collaborate and learn from one another. We’re always looking for ways to innovate faster, accelerate our growth and consistently offer the very best in consumer experience. But most of all, we’re backed by a culture of respect. We embrace authenticity and inspire people to thrive.

As a key member of the Decision Sciences team, the Principal Data Scientist will create analytical solutions for various verticals of NBCU’s video streaming service. This includes, but is not limited to, dynamic pricing, messaging optimization, CRM solutions, and customer value assessment.

In this role, the Principal Data Scientist will employ advanced data science methodologies such as causal uplift modeling, contextual and non-contextual bandits, experimentation, and Gen AI (LLMs). They will collaborate closely with business owners, teammates, and engineers to develop state-of-the-art algorithmic targeting solutions for a dynamic media platform. Additionally, they will be responsible for building, maintaining, and testing robust, production-ready systems that may need to serve low-latency predictions.

Responsibilities include, but are not limited to:

• Own and deliver results on complex projects related to the development of analytical models using machine learning, causal uplift modeling, contextual bandits, and Gen AI techniques.
• Provide mentorship to teammates through pairing and code reviews.
• Serve as a technical lead for the team; stay updated on state-of-the-art methods and help apply them as needed.
• Communicate work and project implications effectively to stakeholders of varying technical expertise.
• Develop templates and examples for the team on coding, readmes, and presentation materials.
• Conduct rigorous cross-validation, backtesting, and offline policy evaluation of machine learning models.
• Expertise with CI/CD processes and contribute to a sustainable and robust codebase.
• Experience with batch jobs/data pipelines and comfortable deploying through systems like Airflow, Luigi, and Composer.
• Build and interact with production systems for serving machine learning predictions, including real-time systems like TensorFlow Extended (TFX) pipelines and TensorFlow Serving.
• Work cross-functionally across data, engineering, and product teams to launch and maintain machine learning-driven projects.

Qualifications

• Advanced (Master's or PhD) degree with specialization in Statistics, Computer Science, Data Science, Economics, Mathematics, Operations Research, or another quantitative field, or equivalent.
• 5-8 years of combined experience in data science in industry or research.
• Expert knowledge of standard data science and statistical techniques.
• Expertise in two of the following: causal inference techniques, Gen AI (LLM) implementation, or contextual bandits.
• Experience implementing scalable systems (Google Cloud prefer