Data Science Manager

About Wayflyer Today's small businesses need a capital provider that keeps pace with their growth ambitions. Traditional financing options are slow, cumbersome and often out of reach. That's why we built Wayflyer. Our technology allows us to assess businesses in minutes, generate financing offers that reflect their growth potential and send funds in as little as 24 hours. To date, we've deployed over $6bn to thousands of businesses worldwide, backed by Tier 1 banks like J.P. Morgan. You'll be collaborating with ambitious colleagues from around the world. We have offices in Dublin, London, New York, Charlotte, Berlin and Sydney. The challenge Data Science at Wayflyer isn't a research function sitting outside the business - it's embedded in the decisions that determine who we fund, how we price, and how fast we grow. We have a team of talented Data Scientists and ML Engineers doing serious work. Now we need someone who can lead them, raise the bar, and make sure what they build actually ships and sticks. What you'll actually do As a Data Science Manager at Wayflyer, you will lead a team of 4+ Data Science and ML Engineers. We treat Machine Learning as a branch of software engineering; you will be a hands-on technical leader responsible for writing code, reviewing PRs, and deploying production-grade ML models that powers Wayflyer’s go-to-market and funding processes. Team Leadership: Manage, mentor, and scale a high-performing team of DS/ML engineers, maintaining a culture of technical excellence and code quality. Technical Execution: Oversee the end-to-end ML lifecycle: from dataset annotation and model training to deployment, monitoring, and infrastructure maintenance. Roadmap & Strategy: Partner with Product and Engineering leads to define and execute a data science roadmap aligned with business growth and risk assessment. Engineering Standards: Implement best practices for reproducible data pipelines, automated testing, and documentation to ensure system reliability. Stakeholder Management: Translate complex technical findings into actionable insights for VPs and C-suite executives. AI Native: Ensure the team leverages AI and LLMs as accelerants to producing high quality outputs rather than as a crutch. Who thrives here You started as an individual contributor and you haven't forgotten what it feels like to be in the weeds of a model that won't behave. You lead from the front - your team knows you can do the work, which is why they trust your direction on it. You can hold a technically rigorous standard and a commercially pragmatic one at the same time, and you know when to push back on a roadmap request and when to find a way to say yes. The people you've managed would say you made them better. Experience: 5+ years in Data Science/ML, with 2+ years in a formal management or lead role. Individual Contributor Roots: A proven track record of building and maintaining production ML systems yourself. Software Engineering: Advanced proficiency in Python and SQL. You should have the core engineering skills required of a Software Engineer. ML Operations: Practical experience with model deployment, monitoring, and orchestration tools (e.g., Airflow, Dagster). Product Thinking: Ability to translate business challenges (specifically in risk or growth) into technical data solutions. How You’ll Stand Out Stack: Python, SQL, Modern Data Stack, Orchestration tools. Bonus: Experience in FinTech or Credit Risk. Bonus: Experience with NLP (Text classification, NER). What this role could turn into This is a role with a direct line to how Wayflyer scales. As the business grows, so does the scope - more products, more markets, more decisions that need Data Science at their core. The person who lands this role won't just be running a team; they'll be shaping how data science is practised across the organisation. That might mean expanding into adjacent domains like growth or platform, taking ownership of cross-functional initiatives, or setting the standards that other teams build to. Location and working policy 📍 Dublin or London, Hybrid. The good stuff 25 days off, plus public holidays. Private healthcare, life insurance, and a pension. Equity - because you should own a piece of what you're building. Generous parental leave for primary and secondary caregivers. 60 days a year to work abroad from wherever you want. By submitting your application, you acknowledge that Wayflyer Limited will process your personal data for the purpose of evaluating your suitability for the role. Such processing is based on the need to take steps prior to entering into a potential employment agreement. To learn more about how we handle your personal data, you can contact our privacy team at privacy@wayflyer.com or review our privacy notice at https://wayflyer.com/privacy-notice .