Lead Data Scientist

AI in this role

Lead a data science team to design and implement machine learning models for financial decisioning and risk assessment applications.

tensorflowscikit-learnxgboostpythonpytorch

nlpmachine-learningrisk-modelingtransaction-classificationleadershipmentoring

Our Purpose

Mastercard powers economies and empowers people in 200+ countries and territories worldwide. Together with our customers, we’re helping build a sustainable economy where everyone can prosper. We support a wide range of digital payments choices, making transactions secure, simple, smart and accessible. Our technology and innovation, partnerships and networks combine to deliver a unique set of products and services that help people, businesses and governments realize their greatest potential.

Title and Summary

Lead Data Scientist

Who is Mastercard?

Mastercard is a global technology company in the payments industry. Our mission is to connect and power an inclusive, digital economy that benefits everyone, everywhere by making transactions safe, simple, smart, and accessible. Using secure data and networks, partnerships and passion, our innovations and solutions help individuals, financial institutions, governments, and businesses realize their greatest potential.

Our decency quotient, or DQ, drives our culture and everything we do inside and outside of our company. With connections across more than 210 countries and territories, we are building a sustainable world that unlocks priceless possibilities for all.

Overview

Finicity, a Mastercard company, is leading the Open Banking Initiative to increase the Financial Health of consumers and businesses. The Data Science and Analytics team is looking for a Lead Data Scientist. The Data Science team works on Intelligent Decisioning; Financial Certainty; Attribute, Feature, and Entity Resolution; Verification Solutions and much more. Join our team to make an impact across all sectors of the economy by consistently innovating and problem-solving. The ideal candidate is passionate about leveraging data to provide high quality customer solutions. Also, the candidate is a strong technical leader who is extremely motivated, intellectually curious, analytical, and possesses an entrepreneurial mindset.

Role

- Lead, mentor and grow the data science team and tech stack focused on developing production-grade services and capabilities
- Plan and direct data science / machine learning projects within the team.
- Design and implement machine learning models for a number of financial applications including but not limited to: Transaction Classification, Temporal Analysis, Risk modeling from structured and unstructured data.
- Measure, validate, implement, monitor and improve performance of both internal and external facing machine learning models.
- Apply various Machine learning (i.e. SVM, Radom Forest, XGBoost, LightGBM, CATBoost etc), Deep learning techniques (i.e. LSTM, RNN, Transformer etc.) and LLMs to solve analytical problem statements.
- Propose creative solutions to existing challenges that are new to the company, the financial industry and to data science.
- Present technical problems and findings to business leaders internally and to clients succinctly and clearly.
- Leverage best practices in machine learning and data engineering to develop scalable solutions.
- Identify areas where resources fall short of needs and provide thoughtful and sustainable solutions to benefit the team
- Be a strong, confident, and excellent writer and speaker, able to communicate your vision and roadmap effectively to a wide variety of stakeholders

All about you:

- Experience mentoring and leading data science teams
- Substantial experience in data science/ machine learning model development and deployments
- Exposure to financial transactional structured and unstructured data, transaction classification, risk evaluation and credit risk modeling is a plus.
- A strong understanding of NLP, Statistical Modeling, Visualization and advanced Data Science techniques/methods.
- Gain insights from text, including non-language tokens and use the thought process of annotations in text analysis.
- Solve problems that are new to the company, the financial industry and to data science
- SQL / Database experience is preferred
- Experience with Kubernetes, Containers, Docker, REST APIs, Event Streams or other delivery mechanisms.
- Familiarity with relevant technologies (e.g. GenAI, LLMs, Agentic AI, TensorFlow, Python, Sklearn, Pandas, etc.).
- Strong desire to collaborate and ability to come up with creative solutions.
- Finance and FinTech experience preferred.
- PhD or Master’s Degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, Mathematics, Statistics, M.S preferred

Mastercard is a merit-based, inclusive, equal opportunity employer that considers applicants without regard to gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, disabled or veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law. We hire the most qualified candidate for the role. In the US or Canada, if you require accommodations or assistance to complete the online application process or during the recruitment process, please contact reasonable_accommodation@mastercard.com and identify the type of accommodation or assistance you are requesting. Do not include any medical or health information in this email. The Reasonable Accommodations team will respond to your email promptly.

Corporate Security Responsibility

All activities involving access to Mastercard assets, information, and networks comes with an inherent risk to the organization and, therefore, it is expected that every person working for, or on behalf of, Mastercard is responsible for information security and must:

Abide by Mastercard’s security policies and practices;
Ensure the confidentiality and integrity of the information being accessed;
Report any suspected information security violation or breach, and
Complete all periodic mandatory security trainings in accordance with Mastercard’s guidelines.

In line with Mastercard’s total compensation philosophy and assuming that the job will be performed in the US, the successful candidate will be offered a competitive base salary and may be eligible for an annual bonus or commissions depending on the role. The base salary offered may vary depending on multiple factors, including but not limited to location, job-related knowledge, skills, and experience. Mastercard benefits for full time (and certain part time) employees generally include: insurance (including medical, prescription drug, dental, vision, disability, life insurance); flexible spending account and health savings account; paid leaves (including 16 weeks of new parent leave and up to 20 days of bereavement leave); 80 hours of Paid Sick and Safe Time, 25 days of vacation time and 5 personal days, pro-rated based on date of hire; 10 annual paid U.S. observed holidays; 401k with a best-in-class company match; deferred compensation for eligible roles; fitness reimbursement or on-site fitness facilities; eligibility for tuition reimbursement; and many more. Mastercard benefits for interns generally include: 56 hours of Paid Sick and Safe Time; jury duty leave; and on-site fitness facilities in some locations. THIS POSTING RELECTS ONE OR MORE CURRENT VACANCIES ON OUR TEAM, AND MASTERCARD INTENDS TO FILL THIS POSITION BY 09/20/2026. If the fill date has passed, Mastercard intends to fill this position as soon as possible.

Pay Ranges

Salt Lake City, Utah: $140,000 - $231,000 USD

How we rate this

Lead Data Scientist at Mastercard rates 90 out of 100 for how much of the daily work is AI. That makes it Builds AI (AI Level 4 of 4). The level is about AI in the job, not seniority.

Classification

Builds AI. The job is building AI systems.

●●●● Builds AI80 to 100
●●●○ Works on AI60 to 79
●●○○ Uses AI40 to 59
●○○○ Little AI0 to 39

Levels come from how often the tools, models and workflows of the role are named in the posting itself. Open the description and count.

Key facts

Lead Data Scientist is an open job at Mastercard.
Level rates this role AI Level 4 of 4: Builds AI.
The role is based in Salt Lake City, Utah (Holladay).
The job was posted on October 7, 2026.
Seniority: lead.
Applications are handled by Mastercard. Apply on Mastercard

Prepare for this job

A free preview built only from this posting: what it asks for, what you could be asked in an interview, and how to adjust your resume.

Skills and AI tools this role asks for

NLPMachine LearningRisk ModelingTransaction ClassificationLeadershipMentoringTensorFlowscikit-learn

Questions you could be asked

What NLP problem have you worked on, and how did you measure whether it actually worked?
Tell me about a project where machine learning was part of your work. What did you do?
Tell me about a project where risk modeling was part of your work. What did you do?
Tell me about a project where transaction classification was part of your work. What did you do?
Tell me about a project where leadership was part of your work. What did you do?

Adapt your resume

List these exact terms on your resume: NLP, Machine Learning, Risk Modeling, Transaction Classification, and Leadership. An applicant tracking system matches the wording, not the idea.
Attach one line of real, concrete experience to at least one of them — a tool named with nothing behind it rarely survives a human read.
Lead with what you built, trained or shipped — this role is judged on the AI system itself, not the tools around it.

Want an expert to read your CV for this job?

Free. Send your CV and the role you want next. We reply by email within 2 to 4 business days.

Get a free CV review

Get new data scientist jobs (Builds AI ●●●●) by email

One email a week with the new data scientist jobs (Builds AI ●●●●), each rated for how much AI is in the work. No recruiter spam, unsubscribe in one click.

Also alert me for new jobs at Mastercard

Free. One email a week. Unsubscribe in one click.