Director, Data Science

# Job Description

## Director Data Science

Are you interested in joining a fast-paced and cutting-edge organization where you can make an immediate impact on the business?

The FI AI COE is seeking a Principal Data Scientist who is passionate about solving business problems using Emerging technologies. This role will be part of the Artificial Intelligence Center of Excellence (AI CoE) within Fidelity Institutional (FI) that constantly pushes the potential of data to drive the business forward.

As a T-shaped AI professional, youll bring deep technical expertise while demonstrating strong business acumen and cross-functional collaboration skills. Critically, we need someone who thinks in systems, understanding how each change ripples through the entire ecosystem, and who approaches every project with a production-ready mindset from day one, not just building shiny demos.

### The Team

The Data Scientists at Fidelity Institutional AI COE develop advanced analytics and artificial intelligence solutions to support a variety of different applications. Our team of high-caliber scientists, ML engineers, mathematicians, and statisticians use meticulous quantitative approaches to ensure that we are efficiently building algorithms and technology relevant to the business or customer.

### Key Responsibilities

#### AI/ML Innovation & Implementation

• Design and deploy state-of-the-art AI and ML solutions to accelerate FI business growth with production reliability and scalability as primary considerations.
• Develop and optimize Large Language Model (LLM) applications for business use cases that integrate seamlessly into existing systems.
• Implement context engineering strategies and prompt optimization techniques.
• Build and maintain Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) systems for semantic search and knowledge retrieval.
• Research and prototype emerging AI techniques, always evaluating for production viability and system-wide impact.

#### Systems Thinking & Architecture

• Analyze and anticipate how AI implementations affect upstream and downstream systems, data flows, and user experiences.
• Design solutions considering scalability, maintainability, observability, and failure modes from the outset.
• Evaluate technical decisions through the lens of system-wide performance, cost, and operational complexity.
• Collaborate with platform infrastructure and application teams to ensure seamless integration.
• Document system dependencies, data lineage, and architectural decisions for long-term maintainability.

#### Business Partnership & Strategy

• Collaborate closely with business stakeholders to deeply understand challenges and translate them into technical solutions.
• Define and monitor AI performance metrics aligned with business KPIs.
• Balance innovation with pragmatism-prioritizing solutions that deliver measurable business value.

#### Data Engineering & Architecture

• Design and implement robust ETL pipelines for both structured and unstructured data.
• Build scalable data infrastructure supporting real-time and batch processing needs.
• Perform exploratory data analysis to uncover insights and improvement opportunities.
• Ensure data quality governance and security best practices.

#### Deployment & Operations

• Deploy and manage AI/ML models in cloud environments (AWS) with production SLAs in mind.
• Establish monitoring systems for model performance drift detection and system health.
• Optimize model serving infrastructure for latency, throughput, and cost.
• Implement MLOps best practices for continuous integration and deployment.
• Build with observability, debugging, and incident response capabilities from the start.

### The Expertise and Skills You Bring

#### Education & Experience

• Minimum Masters Degree in Engineering, Computer Science, Mathematics, Computational Statistics, Operations Research, Machine Learning, or related technical fields.
• 8 years of AI development experience with proven AI/ML project delivery in production environments.
• Demonstrated ability to manage multiple concurrent projects in fast-paced environments.
• Ability to pick up new knowledge fast and passionate about continuous learning.

#### T-Shaped Expertise Profile

Deep Technical Skills

• LLM & Modern AI: Hands-on experience with Large Language Models, prompt engineering, context optimization, and fine-tuning techniques.
• AI/ML Engineering: Expert knowledge of statistical models, predictive modeling, time series analysis, regression, classification, clustering, and dimension reduction.
• Agentic AI: Frameworks, multi-agent orchestration, tool-use, planning, evaluator agents, workflow agents.
• Model Alignment: Guardrails, safety tuning, hallucination mitigation.

Programming

• Advanced proficiency in Python with object-oriented and functional programming paradigms.

Broad Cross-Functional Skills

• Business Acumen: Ability to understand financial services domain and translate business needs into technical solutions.
• Data Engineering: Production experience with ETL pipeline tools (Airflow, dbt) and big data technologies (Snowflake).
• Deployment & MLOps: Experience deploying and managing applications in cloud environments (AWS preferred).
• Collaboration: Strong communication skills to work effectively with technical and non-technical stakeholders.

#### Technical Stack Experience

• Python Ecosystem: NumPy, Pandas, Scikit-learn, Flask, Pip, Anaconda.
• ML/AI Frameworks: Hugging Face, LangChain, or similar.
• Big Data Tools: Spark, Snowflake.
• Cloud Platforms: AWS (SageMaker, Lambda, EC2, S3, etc.).
• Data Pipeline Tools: Airflow, dbt, or equivalent orchestration frameworks.
• RAG & Vector Databases: Experience with semantic search, embeddings, and vector stores.

#### Core Competencies

Production-First Mindset

• Builds production-ready solutions from day one, not prototypes that need to be rebuilt.
• Considers error handling, edge cases, monitoring, and operational concerns upfront.
• Writes clean, maintainable, well-tested code that others can understand and extend.
• Prioritizes reliability, performance, and user experience over technical novelty.

Systems Thinking

• Understands how changes propagate through complex systems and anticipates second-order effects.
• Considers data dependencies, API contracts, backward compatibility, and migration paths.
• Evaluates trade-offs holistically, balancing technical debt, velocity, and long-term sustainability.
• Thinks about failure scenarios, rollback strategies, and graceful degradation.

### Company Overview

At Fidelity, we are focused on making our financial expertise broadly accessible and effective in helping people live the lives they want. We are a privately held company that places a high degree of value in creating and nurturing a work environment that attracts the best talent and reflects our commitment to our associates. We are proud of our diverse and inclusive workplace where we respect and value our associate for their outstanding perspectives and experiences.

For information about working at Fidelity, visit FidelityCareers.com.

Fidelity Investments is an equal opportunity employer.

### Compensation & Benefits

The base salary range for this position is $126,000 - $255,000 USD per year. Placement in the range will vary based on job responsibilities and scope, geographic location, candidates relevant experience, and other factors.

Base salary is only part of the total compensation package. Depending on the position and eligibility requirements, the offer package may also include bonus or other variable compensation. We offer a wide range of benefits to meet your evolving needs and help you live your best life at work and at home. These benefits include:

• Comprehensive health care coverage
• Emotional well-being support
• Market-leading retirement
• Generous paid time off
• Parental leave
• Charitable giving employee match program
• Educational assistance (including student loan repayment, tuition reimbursement, and learning resources to develop your career)

Note: The application window closes when the position is filled or unposted.

### Legal & Compliance

Please be advised that Fidelitys business is governed by the provisions of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, the Investment Advisers Act of 1940, the Investment Company Act of 1940, ERISA, numerous state laws governing securities, investment, and retirement-related financial activities, and the rules and regulations of numerous self-regulatory organizations including FINRA, among others. Those laws and regulations may restrict Fidelity from hiring and/or associating with individuals with certain Criminal Histories.

### Work Arrangement

Most roles at Fidelity are Hybrid, requiring associates to work onsite every other week, all business days (M-F) in a Fidelity office. This does not apply to Remote or fully Onsite roles. Please consult with your recruiter for the specific expectations for this position.

### Certifications & Screening

Category: Data Analytics and Insights

Applicant Screening: At Fidelity, we value honesty, integrity, and the safety of our associates and customers within a heavily regulated industry. Certain roles may require candidates to go through a preliminary credit check during the screening process. Candidates who are presented with a Fidelity offer will need to go through a background investigation and may be asked to provide additional documentation as requested. This investigation includes but is not limited to:

• Criminal history
• Civil litigation
• Regulatory review
• Employment, education, and credit review
• Role-dependent background checks

These investigations will account for 7 years or more of history depending on the role. Where permitted by federal or state law, Fidelity will also conduct a pre-employment drug screen which will review for the following substances: Amphetamines, THC (marijuana), cocaine, opiates, phencyclidine.

### Reasonable Accommodations

Fidelity will reasonably accommodate applicants with disabilities who need adjustments to participate in the application or interview process. To initiate a request for an accommodation, contact the HR Accommodation Team by sending an email to accommodationsfmr.com or by calling 800-835-5099 (prompt 2, option 3).

### AI Guidelines

Learn about our guidelines for use of AI when applying for a Fidelity job.

### Benefits that balance life and work

From our fully paid parent leave to our on-site health and wellness centers, our benefits support the belief that the more balance you have, the better you can achieve your goals.