Lead Data Scientist - R&D

About the role

Mastercard is seeking a Lead Data Scientist to join its Foundry Research & Development team. In this role you will drive the creation of innovative, production‑grade machine‑learning and AI solutions that power global payment products.

Key responsibilities

• Lead the technical design, development, and review of scalable machine‑learning models, predictive algorithms, and statistical solutions.
• Guide model refinement through feature engineering, hyper‑parameter tuning, and rigorous validation.
• Collaborate with AI/ML engineering, product, and business teams to deploy, scale, and operationalize models.
• Translate complex data‑science insights into clear, actionable recommendations for stakeholders.
• Document models, processes, and methodologies to ensure reproducibility and knowledge sharing.
• Mentor junior data‑science team members and promote best practices across the organization.

Required profile

• Proven experience designing and delivering production‑grade machine‑learning, deep‑learning, and NLP solutions.
• Strong ability to work across cross‑functional teams and communicate technical concepts to non‑technical audiences.
• Track record of guiding model optimization and ensuring robustness in production environments.

Required skills

• Machine learning
• Deep learning
• Natural language processing (NLP)
• Feature engineering
• Hyper‑parameter tuning
• Model validation
• Statistical analysis