The Role
The role involves designing, building, and maintaining data products and models using Snowflake. Responsibilities include full model lifecycle management, collaboration with cross-functional teams, and ensuring best practices in data science.
Summary Generated by Built In
About Us We’re not like other insurance companies. From our specialty products to our business model, our culture to our results — we’re different. Different is who we are, and how we work, interact, deliver and succeed together. Creating a different and better insurance experience doesn’t just happen. It takes focus and a shared passion for going beyond the expected to forge relationships and deliver care that makes a difference. This approach rises from and is supported by our talented, ethical and smart team of employee owners united around a single purpose: to work alongside our customers and partners when they need us, in unexpected ways, with exceptional results. Apply today to make a difference with us. RLI is a Glassdoor Best Places to Work company with a strong, successful background. For decades, our financial track record has been stellar — a testament to our culture and validation of our reputation as an excellent underwriting company.Role OverviewWe’re hiring a mid-level Data Scientist to play a foundational role in shaping how AI/ML is applied across our Personal Umbrella Policy (PUP) and E&S Property lines of business. This individual will work hands-on to design, build, deploy and maintain curated data and analytical models within Snowflake, collaborating closely with our product, actuarial, analyst and engineering teams.
You’ll own the full model lifecycle—from experimentation and feature engineering to deployment, monitoring, and retraining—while contributing to the development of a repeatable, scalable data science foundation at RLI.
Key Responsibilities
You’ll own the full model lifecycle—from experimentation and feature engineering to deployment, monitoring, and retraining—while contributing to the development of a repeatable, scalable data science foundation at RLI.
Key Responsibilities
- Design, create, document and maintain user-friendly and purpose-built data products for use by models and non-technical end users.
- Develop, train, and deploy models using Snowflake Cortex, Snowpark, and integrated Python execution.
- Own the end-to-end model lifecycle: experimentation, feature engineering, validation, production deployment, and monitoring.
- Work closely with our underwriting, claim, actuarial, and analyst teams to translate business needs into data science solutions.
- Design, create, document and maintain user-friendly and purpose-built data products for use by models and non-technical end users.
- Partner with data engineering to ensure the availability and readiness of Snowflake-based datasets for modeling and inference.
- Contribute to the development of model governance, reusability standards, and operational monitoring frameworks.
- Stay current on Snowflake’s evolving capabilities to ensure model development aligns with platform best practices.
- Assist in building a shared foundation for data science best practices and help inform future tooling and infrastructure investments.
- 3–5 years of hands-on experience in applied data science or machine learning roles.
- Proficiency in Python (e.g., scikit-learn, XGBoost, pandas) and SQL.
- Experience developing and deploying models in Snowflake using Snowpark, Cortex, or similar cloud-native tools.
- Strong understanding of supervised learning, feature engineering, and model performance evaluation.
- Proven ability to work cross-functionally with both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
- Excellent problem-solving, communication, and documentation skills.
- In-office requirement of 3 days minimum in our Peoria or Chicago office.
- Background in insurance, risk modeling, or financial services.
- Experience working in environments with governed data platforms and production ML workflows.
- Exposure to MLOps practices, model versioning, and drift monitoring.
- Opportunity to shape the future of data science at a financially strong, innovation-minded company.
- Work with a modern data stack (Snowflake, Power BI, Azure).
- Partner closely with experienced leaders and cross-functional teams.
- Make a direct impact on underwriting precision, claims operations, portfolio risk management, and product innovation.
- Annual bonus plans
- Employee stock ownership plan (ESOP)
- 401(k) — automatic 3% company contribution
- Annual 401k and ESOP profit-sharing contributions (Up to 15% of eligible earnings)
- Paid time off (PTO) and holidays
- Paid volunteer time off (VTO) to support our communities
- Parental and family care leave
- Flexible & hybrid work arrangements
- Fitness center discounts and free virtual fitness platform
- Employee assistance program
- Comprehensive medical, dental and vision benefits
- Flexible spending and health savings accounts
- 2x base salary for group life and AD&D insurance
- Voluntary life, critical illness, & accident insurance for purchase
- Short-term and long-term disability benefits
- Training & certification opportunities
- Tuition reimbursement
- Education bonuses
Top Skills
Cortex
Python
Snowflake
Snowpark
SQL
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The Company
What We Do
RLI is a U.S.-based specialty insurer that serves niche property, casualty and surety markets. We provide peace of mind to the customers we serve by safeguarding their assets and helping them manage risk. We hire smart, ethical people, make them owners of the business and give them the freedom to succeed. These are the principles that drive our success, and they’re the reasons we have been successful for more than 50 years.
We believe in a different way of doing business and RLI is not what you’d expect from a typical insurance company. Our creative and collaborative workplace is cultivated by employee owners empowered to make good decisions for customers and the business.
We have a reputation for niche expertise, superior service and an entrepreneurial culture. In the industry and among our peers, we’re known for:
The best and brightest people in the industry who build strong relationships and provide outstanding service.
An underwriting focus so we perform well in all market cycles.
Our empowered, creative ownership culture.
A customized approach to developing insurance products to meet very specific needs.
Proven financial strength.
