Prolific - Lead Applied Scientist (Maternity Cover FTC)

• Deep expertise in one applied ML, statistics, or data science specialism. • Examples could be marketplace or supply-demand modelling, pricing and incentive optimisation, or matching and recommendation systems, but any area of genuine depth counts • Judgement about when to reach for simple statistics, classical ML, LLMs, or agentic approaches. • 3+ years applying ML, AI research, or data science to real problems. • Python skills sufficient to build, test, and iterate on working prototypes independently. • Able to take a loosely defined product or customer problem and turn it into clear hypotheses, experiments, and metrics. • You must be comfortable working on ambiguous problems and suggesting solutions rather than waiting to be told exactly what to do. • An MSc or PhD in Computer Science, Maths, Statistics, Economics, Psychology, ML, or a related field—or equivalent knowledge gained another way. • Experience working alongside product and engineering teams. • How you'll work • You'll join an established Supply Data Science team, working alongside existing specialists (for example, in marketplace economics). You don't need to have all the answers on day one, but you should be ready to get stuck in quickly. • You spot problems worth solving and start on them, rather than waiting to be assigned. • You will be comfortable (and ideally enjoy) collaborating with others. • You don't need to meet every point above to apply. If you have strong depth in the essentials and are interested in the work, we'd like to hear from you—we know good candidates, particularly from underrepresented groups, often hold back unless they match everything. We're happy to adjust any part of the interview process to work better for you — just let us know what would help.