Principal Data Scientist I

Description

The team is a diverse group working on GenAI, ML and NLP. It builds enrichment pipelines for the life science products Reaxys, Embase and Pharmapendium.

This principal role sets technical direction for data science across several teams, covering AI, NLP and generative AI for knowledge discovery and decision support. The focus is on standards, quality and governance, and on representing data science in senior forums while staying close enough to the work to guide architecture and delivery. Hands-on work happens occasionally, on high priority or high risk items.

Responsibilities

• Set architecture and technical standards for AI/ML, NLP and generative AI across teams, covering LLM-based workflows, RAG systems, and retrieval, ranking and recommendation.
• Shape how scientific metadata, ontologies, taxonomies and knowledge assets feed into AI workflows, favouring reusable, consistent patterns over one-off builds.
• Review code, architecture and technical decisions for production readiness, and step into hands-on work when needed.
• Consolidate divergent technical approaches into shared patterns, libraries or frameworks to cut duplication.
• Define and maintain shared standards and evaluation and monitoring frameworks that keep quality, trust and reliability consistent.
• Lead or contribute to AI governance and compliance, including responsible AI, model risk assessment and regulatory adherence.
• Run or oversee technical reviews and quality audits, find gaps and drive fixes.
• Mentor and coach across several data science teams to raise capability and quality.
• Harmonise tooling and delivery practices across distributed teams while preserving team-level autonomy.
• Represent data science in senior management and governance meetings, explaining strategy, risk and progress to non-technical stakeholders.
• Advise senior leadership on technical matters and turn business priorities into technical direction.
• Work with other teams and functions to turn complex, ambiguous problems into practical solutions.

Requirements

• Substantial experience in data science, AI, machine learning, NLP, information retrieval or a related field, at senior or principal level.
• A strong record of building AI/ML, NLP, generative AI and retrieval systems hands on, and of going into technical depth when needed.
• Expertise with LLMs, including fine-tuning, prompt engineering, grounding strategies and responsible AI.
• Proven experience setting technical standards, evaluation frameworks or governance across teams, not only within one project.
• Working knowledge of AI governance, model risk and compliance requirements.
• Strong Python skills and solid machine learning fundamentals.
• Experience with large text or content-rich datasets and modern AI/ML frameworks.
• Experience with RAG, semantic, vector or hybrid search, and with experiments that measure user impact.
• Familiarity with cloud platforms and modern software engineering practices.
• Excellent communication and stakeholder management, with a proven ability to present technical work to senior and non-technical audiences.
• Strong mentoring and leadership skills, and experience influencing and coordinating across several teams.

Conditions

Flexible working hours, so you can arrange your day around when you are most productive.

If based in NLD Amsterdam (Radarweg), the base pay range is €86,900 - €144,600.

The job may fall under a collective labour agreement in the Netherlands. Ask the hiring team for details.

The company is an equal-opportunity employer and offers accommodations on request.

Benefits

• Support for work/life balance, including wellbeing initiatives, shared parental leave, study assistance and sabbaticals.
• Country-specific benefits are available for each location.