Head of Data & AI

About the Company

Our client is developing an AI-first operating system tailored for a critical real-world sector, integrating various stakeholders within a unified intelligent platform. The company already functions at scale, supporting thousands of active users and operating live enterprise deployments across several markets, consolidating transactional, operational, and inventory data into a single ecosystem.

Position Overview

As the company advances, it aims to transition from traditional predictive analytics toward agentic AI systems capable of autonomously making and executing decisions. The Head of Data & AI role is a senior, technically hands-on leadership position with a focus on enhancing core machine learning systems, creating intelligent decision-making AI, and driving measurable operational efficiencies throughout the organization.

Primary Responsibilities

• Take ownership and advance the forecasting and optimization engine.
• Enhance machine learning model accuracy for demand forecasting and inventory management cases.
• Architect and implement agentic AI systems designed to reduce manual efforts and inefficiencies.
• Address complex problems such as forecasting with sparse or low-frequency data.
• Develop and scale robust production-grade machine learning systems and data pipelines.
• Handle large, diverse datasets sourced across operational systems.
• Champion AI adoption across multiple business departments.
• Lead a lean, high-impact data science team while maintaining active hands-on involvement.

Required Qualifications and Experience

• Seven to twelve-plus years of experience in Data Science or Machine Learning with deep hands-on expertise.
• Demonstrated success in designing and optimizing forecasting models.
• Strong competency in statistical and machine learning techniques such as regression and tree-based models.
• Proficient in selecting and applying appropriate models to complex, real-life challenges.
• Experience deploying machine learning solutions in production environments.
• Advanced programming skills in Python and familiarity with ML frameworks and data pipeline construction.
• Leadership experience in managing teams while staying actively involved in technical tasks.

Preferred but Not Required

• Experience working with agentic AI or decision automation systems.
• Knowledge of optimization, reinforcement learning, or advanced ML methodologies.
• Exposure to operationally intensive sectors such as logistics or marketplace platforms.

Unsuitable Candidates

• Those focused purely on strategic roles or consulting without strong ML foundations.
• Applicants lacking core machine learning fundamentals.

Why Join This Role

• Contribute to building AI systems that have real, tangible impacts on operational workflows.
• Work extensively with large-scale, high-quality data sets.
• Influence and guide the AI strategy in a rapidly scaling company.
• Enjoy high visibility and ownership, with direct interaction with senior leadership.
• Engage in solving challenging and complex machine learning problems.