Senior Data Scientist, ML (Insurance Underwriting)

Overview

Guardian is on a transformation journey to evolve into a modern, forward-thinking insurance company committed to enhancing the wellbeing of its customers and their families. This role presents a distinctive opportunity to drive real-world impact by applying cutting-edge AI to transform how Guardian does business.

Guardian’s Data & AI team spearheads a culture of intelligence and automation across the enterprise, creating business value from advanced data and AI solutions. Our team includes data scientists, engineers, analysts, and product leaders working together to deliver AI-driven products that power growth, improve risk management, and elevate customer experience.

Guardian is seeking experienced individual contributor with a strong background and expertise in production ready AI/ML solutions with a track record of delivering enterprise level AI/ML solutions and products. In this role as Senior Data Scientist, you'll be working in a team of Data Scientists led by Lead Data Scientist to develop advanced data science solutions, leveraging machine learning and artificial intelligence, to drive enterprise-wide innovation across various business lines and Guardian products. You'll collaborate with cross-functional teams of other Data Science, Data Engineering, Business groups. Successful candidates have strong technical foundation, excel in coding, detail oriented, and have passion for analytical thinking and problem solving.

• Lead use case/workstream with junior data scientists
• Contribute to the end-to-end model lifecycle, including data exploration and understanding, feature engineering, model training and validation, ensuring quality, security, scalability, and fairness
• Support use case development that includes initial project scoping, project/sample design, reception and processing of data, performing analysis and modeling to creation of final report/presentation
• Data wrangling/data matching/ETL to explore a variety of data sources, gain data expertise, perform summary analyses and prepare modeling datasets
• Utilizing advanced statistical and AI/ML techniques to create high-performing predictive models and creative analyses to address business objectives and partner needs
• Identification of source data and data quality checks both in model/solution development and in production
• Packaging of model/solution and deployment in cooperation with Data Engineers and MLOps
• Implement new statistical or other mathematical methodologies as needed for specific models or analysis.
• Propose innovative ways to look at problems through using data mining and data visualization
• Work with stakeholders throughout the organization to identify opportunities for leveraging company data to drive business solutions.
• Present information using data visualization techniques; communicate results and ideas to key decision makers.
• Ensure data accuracy and consistent reporting by performing regular data quality control, prepare and maintain reports, and troubleshoot data anomalies
• Adhere to model governance, documentation, testing, and other best practices in partnership with key stakeholders.
• Consistent accuracy and thoroughness in performing work assignments
• Attend industry conferences to stay current on industry trends, challenges, and potential market opportunities
• Contribute to standardization of Data Science tools, processes, and best practices
• Build LLM/AI powered application prototypes with lightweight UI  (e.g., Streamlit) to validate usability and support adoption.

• Passionate about cutting-edge technology and keen on applying new AI/ML algorithms and approaches.
•  Analytically driven, intellectually curious, and experienced leading the development and implementation of data and analytic solutions to solve challenging business problems. 
• Enjoy collaborating with other data scientists to crack hard to solve problems with AI/ML and seeing it deployed in-market and generating value for Guardian.
• Enjoy collaborating with a multi-disciplinary team including data engineers, business analysts, software developers and functional business experts and business leaders. 

• PhD with 2+ years of experience, Master's degree with 4+ years of experience in Statistics, Computer Science, Engineering, Applied mathematics or related field
• Experience in Insurance Underwriting
• 3+ years of hands-on ML modeling/development experience
• Background in insurance and underwriting preferred
• Solid understanding  of data analysis and statistical modeling.
• Knowledge of a variety of machine learning techniques (clustering, decision tree, bagging/boosting artificial neural networks, etc.) and their real-world advantages/drawbacks.
• Demonstrated track records in experimental design and executions
• Hands-on experience with data wrangling including fuzzy matching and regular expression, distributed computing and applying parallelism to ML solutions
• Strong programming skills in Python
• Solid background in algorithms and a range of ML models
• Excellent communication skills and ability to work and collaborate cross-functionally with Product, Engineering, and other disciplines at both the leadership and hands-on level
• Excellent analytical and problem-solving abilities with superb attention to detail
• Proven experience in providing technical leadership and mentoring to data scientists and strong project management skills with ability to monitor/track performance for enterprise success
• Experience communicating complex ideas simply, presenting impact, trade-offs, and recommendations to non-technical partners.
• Working knowledge of core software engineering concepts (version control with Git/GitHub, testing, logging, ...).
• Working knowledge of NLP, LLMs, RAG architecture, and agent frameworks, including safe automation design and evaluation systems.
• Experience in insurance, financial services, or related industries is a plus

Location:

• Three days a week at a Guardian office in New York, NY, Holmdel, NJ, Bethlehem, PA, or Boston, MA

Work Authorization

• Guardian Life is not currently or in the foreseeable future sponsoring employment visas. In order to be a successful applicant, you must be legally authorized to work in the United States, without the need for employer sponsorship now or in the future.

Salary Range:

The salary range reflected above is a good faith estimate of base pay for the primary location of the position. The salary for this position ultimately will be determined based on the education, experience, knowledge, and abilities of the successful candidate. In addition to salary, this role may also be eligible for annual, sales, or other incentive compensation.

Our Promise

At Guardian, you’ll have the support and flexibility to achieve your professional and personal goals.  Through skill-building, leadership development and philanthropic opportunities, we provide opportunities to build communities and grow your career, surrounded by diverse colleagues with high ethical standards.

Inspire Well-Being

As part of Guardian’s Purpose – to inspire well-being – we are committed to offering contemporary, supportive, flexible, and inclusive benefits and resources to our colleagues. Explore our company benefits at www.guardianlife.com/careers/corporate/benefits. Benefits apply to full-time eligible employees. Interns are not eligible for most Company benefits.

Equal Employment Opportunity

Guardian is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will be considered for employment without regard to age, race, color, creed, religion, sex, affectional or sexual orientation, national origin, ancestry, marital status, disability, military or veteran status, or any other classification protected by applicable law.

Accommodations

Guardian is committed to providing access, equal opportunity and reasonable accommodation for individuals with disabilities in employment, its services, programs, and activities. Guardian also provides reasonable accommodations to qualified job applicants (and employees) to accommodate the individual's known limitations related to pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions, unless doing so would create an undue hardship. If reasonable accommodation is needed to participate in the job application or interview process, to perform essential job functions, and/or to receive other benefits and privileges of employment, please contact [email protected]. Please note: this resource is for accommodation requests only. For all other inquires related to your application and careers at Guardian, refer to the Guardian Careers site.

Visa Sponsorship

Guardian is not currently or in the foreseeable future sponsoring employment visas. In order to be a successful applicant. you must be legally authorized to work in the United States, without the need for employer sponsorship.

Current Guardian Colleagues: Please apply through the internal Jobs Hub in Workday.