[Hiring] Director of Data Science @Mission Lane

Role Description

We're looking for a Director of Data Science to own the strategy and technical leadership behind Mission Lane's credit acquisition models, reporting to the Sr. Director, Data Science.

The impact you'll make:

• Lead the strategy and the team behind credit card application decisions.
• Ensure every decision is accurate and fair as circumstances shift.
• Shape the direction of a young company in a stable stretch of maturation.

What you'll own:

• Mission Lane's credit acquisition modeling strategy, balancing approval rates, portfolio performance, and fair lending practice.
• Technical leadership for data scientists building and maintaining acquisition models.
• Model risk and monitoring practices for compliance and accuracy.
• Cross-functional alignment with Credit Risk, Portfolio, Data Engineering, and company leadership.
• A growing scope as acquisitions-adjacent growth initiatives roll into the team.

Our core tech stack includes:

• Python and the Python data stack (numpy, polars, scikit-learn).
• LightGBM, DVC, Kubernetes, Airflow, Google Cloud, and Chalk.

You'll thrive in this role if:

• You stay anchored to the business problem you're solving.
• You're curious by nature and want to understand how the pieces fit together.
• You've made predictions where the outcome doesn't show up for a year or more.
• You can mentor and raise the technical bar for experienced data scientists.
• You partner naturally with people outside data science.

Qualifications

• Has a PhD in a quantitative field and 5+ years of experience in a related role, or a BS/MS in a quantitative field and 8+ years of experience in a related role.
• Has created, deployed, and managed supervised learning models in a production environment for high-impact applications.
• Has direct experience hiring, coaching, and developing data scientists as their manager.
• Has applied data science to credit risk, underwriting, or another long-horizon, regulated prediction problem.
• Writes tested, reviewed, reproducible code, and works fluently in the Python data stack.
• Able to travel ~4-6+ times per year for high quality in-person collaboration.

Preferred Qualifications

• Direct experience in consumer lending; credit card acquisitions, specifically.
• Familiarity with Mission Lane's broader ML tooling ecosystem, including Chalk, BentoML, or DVC.
• Experience partnering directly with executive leadership on modeling strategy.

Compensation

• Annual full-time starting base salary range: $184,000 - $219,000.
• This role is eligible for additional compensation in the forms of participation in our annual incentive and equity programs.
• Pay is based on factors such as work experience, education, certification(s), training, skills, and competencies related to the role.

Benefits

• Comprehensive benefits plan, which includes paid time off.
• 401(k) match.
• Monthly wellness stipend.
• Health/dental/vision insurance options.
• Disability coverage.
• Paid parental leave.
• Flexible spending account (for childcare and healthcare).
• Life insurance.
• Remote-first work environment.