Principal Data Scientist

Principal Data Scientist – Volkswagen Financial Services

Volkswagen Financial Services, a wholly‑owned subsidiary of Volkswagen Group, supports Audi, Ducati, and Volkswagen brands and their dealers through retail leasing, retail financing, commercial financing, and end‑of‑term vehicle disposition.

This Career Level 30P position is located in Reston, VA with a Hybrid role classification. It sits within the Data Science & AI Center of Excellence and is a key player in providing analytical insights, models, and direction to shape the mobility strategy of VWFS.

• Lead data science product development. Set standards, best practices, and innovation for the data science CoE (25%).
• Experimentation, build, and integration of data science solutions. Incorporate these into core business processes and explore new opportunities (75%).
• Define and continuously improve the machine‑learning environment.
• Develop and deploy AI models that influence business decisions.
• Establish best practices and governance to ensure compliance with model‑management policies, peer reviews, and privacy, ethics, and bias standards.
• Bring relevant data‑science techniques, algorithms, and tools to the team.
• Provide technical oversight, coaching and mentorship to junior data scientists.
• Apply suitable techniques for model testing and tuning to assess accuracy, fit, validity, and robustness.
• Innovate new ML methods and drive change across the business.
• Contribute to code documentation, maintain playbooks, and provide timely progress updates.
• Help generate compelling hypotheses to drive new business creation.

Required Education

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Statistics, Economics, Engineering, Operations Research or a similar quantitative field.
• Master’s degree in Computer Science, Statistics, Economics, Engineering, Operations Research or a similar quantitative field (preferred).

Relevant Experience

• 12+ years of data & analytics work experience, with 8+ years in data science.
• 7+ years of experience extracting, curating, exploring, and analyzing large data sources.
• 7+ years developing, integrating, and deploying machine‑learning solutions into business decision‑making.
• 7+ years leveraging algorithms, tuning parameters, and back‑testing validation.
• 5+ years leading ML project development.

Skills

• Collaborate with product owners and managers to translate business requirements into scalable AI solutions.
• Build, integrate, and deploy machine‑learning solutions into business decision‑making.
• Deep knowledge of machine‑learning models, including traditional ML and generative AI.
• Consultative approach to solve challenging problems with analytical techniques.
• Research, explore, and enable new quantitative techniques and technologies to keep VWFS as an industry leader.
• Extensive experience with model evaluation, A/B testing, and causal analysis.
• Research new data sources and analytical tools, contribute to new application development, and improve data quality.
• Ability to collaborate across business units to co‑create solutions.
• Passion for data analysis and problem solving.
• Track performance, identify improvement opportunities, form hypotheses, and design tests to drive strategy enhancement.
• Superior ability to communicate technical ideas and results to non‑technical users, both written and verbal.

• Mid‑Senior level

• Full‑time

• Engineering and Information Technology

Volkswagen Financial Services is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We welcome and encourage applicants from all backgrounds and do not discriminate based on race, sex, age, disability, sexual orientation, national origin, religion, color, gender identity or expression, marital status, veteran status, or any other protected characteristic.

This role description is a guideline and does not create contractual rights between the Company and any applicant. The Company does not enter into any type of employment contract, implied or written, regarding job security.

The Company participates in E‑Verify. We maintain a drug‑free workplace and perform pre‑employment substance‑abuse testing.