Head of Data Science

Head of Data Science – Optimisation & Machine Learning

📍Munich (Hybrid)

💰 Senior Leadership Package

🌍 International Digital Platform Environment

The Opportunity

An established international digital platform business is seeking a Head of Data Science to lead a high-impact optimisation function

This is not a transformation or governance role.

We are looking for a technically credible Data Science leader who combines hands-on modelling expertise with team leadership, ideally within eCommerce, marketplace, travel, mobility or high-transaction B2C environments.

You will lead a team of 10–15 Data Scientists focused on revenue optimisation, pricing intelligence, personalisation and advanced experimentation.

What You’ll Be Responsible For

• Leading and mentoring a team of Data Scientists delivering production-grade ML models
• Owning advanced optimisation initiatives across pricing, conversion and customer value
• Designing and scaling experimentation frameworks (A/B testing, uplift modelling, causal inference)
• Driving the adoption of adaptive optimisation approaches, including reinforcement learning methods
• Partnering closely with Product, Engineering and Commercial teams to embed models into live decision systems
• Ensuring strong model governance, evaluation, and production performance

What We’re Looking For

• Proven experience leading Data Science teams (8–15+)
• Strong hands-on background in machine learning and statistical modelling
• Demonstrated delivery of optimisation systems in production environments
• Experience within eCommerce, marketplaces, digital platforms or other high-volume transactional businesses
• Exposure to reinforcement learning, contextual bandits, or real-time decision systems is highly desirable
• Comfortable reviewing code, model design and experimentation methodology

Ideal Background

You may currently be:

• Director of Data Science – Optimisation
• Head of Pricing Data Science
• Lead Machine Learning Engineer – Marketplace
• Principal Applied Scientist moving into leadership

Why Consider This Role?

• Direct commercial impact at scale
• High data maturity and investment in ML
• Opportunity to shape optimisation strategy end-to-end
• Strong executive visibility
• International operating environment