Principal Data Scientist

Job Description

Mott MacDonald

We’re a global engineering, management, and development consultancy.
Our purpose is to improve society by considering social outcomes in everything we do, relentlessly focusing on excellence and digital innovation, transforming our clients’ businesses, our communities and employee opportunities.

A fundamental part of this is respecting each person’s differences and striving to meet their needs.

We are proud to be a one of Glassdoor’s top employers to work for in the UK, as well as being recognised as a Top Inclusive Company in the UK.

Our values: Progress, Respect, Integrity, Drive, Excellence.

About the division

Moata, a digital solution platform at Mott MacDonald, boasts a world-class data science team whose mission is to deliver value-driven AI solutions for construction and infrastructure industry. We work with industry-leading asset owners and operators, spanning transport, water and energy, local and central Government. Our solutions deliver social outcomes. We forecast flood risks to help city councils to proactively allocate resources and respond effectively to potential flooding. We analyse a diverse range of geospatial data to comprehend the complex variables involved in making informed decisions during infrastructure projects. These are only a glimpse of what can be possible in leveraging machine learning and AI effectively and responsibly to bring transformational social change in what we do.

About the team
Moata data science team is an integral part of our innovative product development at Moata within the Group Digital Team. We are a dynamic and fast-growing group of professionals dedicated to building value-driven machine learning and AI applications. Our aim is to create solutions that enhance our Moata products and thus bring a lasting impact on society as a whole. Despite being part of a large corporation with 18,000 employees, our data science team at Moata maintains a startup vibe and embraces agility. We adopt a flexible approach, enabling us to innovate with numerous proof of concepts (POCs) and effectively transition validated POCs into production.

About the role
As a principal Data Scientist, you will work with a wider team - product, business, and platform teams to answer some of the most interesting questions to leverage AI in business operations. Additionally, you will be part of the team and assist in developing solutions to major infrastructure and environmental challenges. While you will provide technical leadership to primarily data scientists in Moata data science team, your influence and guidance will extend far beyond. As a technical lead within the Group Digital, your expertise will have a broad-reaching impact across the entire data science community, at Mott MacDonald.

What you will contribute to the team:

• Leading the design and the execution of proof-of-concepts through innovation to production-ready ML/AI solutions for internal and external clients
• Collaborating with cross-functional teams to understand their needs and identify opportunities where AI and data science can drive impactful solutions
• Conducting literature reviews and staying updated on the latest advancements in AI technologies
• Working closely with data scientists, machine learning engineers, and data engineers to ensure business requirements are translated into robust, scalable technical solutions
• Overseeing the complete life cycle of ML/AI solutions, ensuring robust and responsible development, implementation, and governance practices throughout the process
• Communicating complex concept to a range of technical and non-technical stakeholders in a clear and effective manner
• Driving best practices within the team and across cross-functional teams

About you

Essential criteria:

• Expertise in ML/AI solution development and proven track record of leading and driving successful development in industry
• Experience working with Cloud services (i.e. Microsoft Azure)
• Proficient in Python, ML/AI libraries, and deep learning frameworks (i.e. TensorFlow, PyTorch, Keras)
• Experienced in the fundamentals of machine learning lifecycle and MLOps
• Experienced in collaborative project development and associated tools such as Git.
• Solid communication skills – in person, in code, and code-review, and in writing and visualisation; to technical and non-technical audiences
• Passionate about solving challenging and ambiguous problems that go beyond the application of the off-the-shelf tools

Desirable criteria:

• Experience with graph database or building knowledge base
• Experience with unstructured data such as texts or images
• Direct experience working with large language or multi-modal models
• Experience with API development

Equality, diversity, and inclusion

We put equality, diversity, and inclusion at the heart of our business, seeking to promote fair employment procedures and practices to ensure equal opportunities for all. We encourage individual expression in our workplace and are committed to creating an inclusive environment where everyone feels they can contribute.

Accessibility

We want you to perform your best at every stage in the recruitment process. If you are disabled or need any support to enable you to apply or attend an interview, please contact us at reasonable.adjustments@mottmac.com and we will talk to you about how we can support you.

Agile working

Happy to talk Flexible Working and how we can support your responsibilities beyond the workplace.

We offer some fantastic benefits including:

Health and wellbeing

• Private medical insurance for all UK colleagues.
• Health cash plan to support you with every day health costs and treatments.
• Access to Peppy, providing free support from menopause experts for all UK colleagues.
• A variety of wellbeing support is available through our comprehensive wellbeing program, including access for you and your family.
• Ability to flex your salary to opt into a wide range of health benefits, many of which can be extended to your family too.

Financial wellbeing

• We match employee pension contributions between 4.5% and 7%.
• Life assurance equal up to 4 x your basic salary, with an option to increase the level of cover to 6 x your salary.
• Our income protection scheme provides a financial benefit, as well as absence and return to work support due to long-term illness or injury.
• Flexible benefits, including increased life assurance cover, critical illness insurance, payroll saving and will writing.
• As an independently owned business we share the financial success of the business with all our colleagues in various ways including annual bonus schemes.

Lifestyle

• A minimum of 33-35 days holiday each year, inclusive of public holidays and dependent on level, with the ability to buy or sell leave through our flexible benefits programme.
• Holiday entitlement increased to a minimum of 35 days after 5 years’ service.
• Variety of employee saving schemes and discounts from high-street retailers.

Enhanced family and carers leave

• Enhanced family leave policies, including 26 weeks paid maternity and adoption leave, and two weeks paid paternity/partner leave.
• Our shared parental leave matches maternity leave meaning we pay up to 24 weeks at full pay.
• Up to five additional days leave are provided for those with significant caring responsibilities, two of which are paid.

Learning and development

• Primary annual professional institution subscription.
• A broad range of opportunities to enhance both technical and soft skills through mentoring, formal training, and self-development options.

Networks, communities, and social outcomes

• Join a wide range of groups including our Advanced Employee Networks which support our LGBTQ+, gender, race and ethnicity, disability, and parents/carers communities.
• Make a difference within our communities through our social outcomes.

Apply now, or for more information about our application process, click here.