Principal Data Scientist – Discoverability, Recommendations
Job Details
Job Reference: 43528
Band: D
Salary: £73,000 – £83,000 depending on relevant skills, knowledge and experience.
Contract type: Permanent – Full Time
Location: Salford, Glasgow, Newcastle, London. This is a hybrid role, and the successful candidate will balance office working with home working.
Purpose of the Role
The BBC has been serving audiences online for decades. Across our flagship products – BBC iPlayer, Sounds, News, Sport, and more – we educate, inform, and entertain millions of people every single day. We are now accelerating our shift towards experiences that are shaped around our audiences: more personal, more relevant, and more responsive to their needs. At the heart of this transformation is the Recommendations team. We design and build large scale ML/AI systems that help audiences discover the right content at the right moment. Our work already powers experiences across the BBC, including personalised recommendations on iPlayer and BBC Sounds. We’re now looking for a Principal Data Scientist to help us in this next stage of our journey.
Why Join the Team
As a Principal Data Scientist, you’ll play a key role in shaping the technical direction of recommender systems used by millions of people each day. You’ll be a hands‑on contributor – prototyping, experimenting, and guiding the technical approach for complex ML solutions at true BBC scale. Working in a cross‑functional team, you’ll partner closely with engineers, product managers, and data scientists to deliver high‑impact systems that help audiences connect with the BBC’s breadth and depth of content. Beyond your immediate team, you’ll be an active member of the wider BBC Data Science community. You’ll have opportunities to share your work, influence the development of data science and AI practices across the organisation, and engage with external communities to continue your own learning and development.
Your Key Responsibilities And Impact
You’ll use your technical skills to deliver value to BBC audiences, blending a breadth and depth of data science expertise.
You’ll have impact within your immediate team and beyond, across the wider BBC, instrumental in developing scalable ML products.
You’ll work effectively within a cross‑functional environment, collaborating to overcome the real‑world challenges of deploying and maintaining ML in production.
You’ll apply your knowledge of machine learning algorithms to solve complex user and business problems in a robust and scalable way.
You’ll join the wider BBC Data Science community, with internal and external opportunities to get involved, share your knowledge, and mentor colleagues.
Essential
Extensive hands‑on experience in data science and machine learning, with a proven track record of contributing to technical machine learning projects. Experience developing and deploying recommender systems. Strong coding skills in Python. Ability to clearly communicate to both technical and non‑technical audiences. Ability to work effectively in a cross‑functional team.
Desirable
Experience with model lifecycle management and MLOps, including model deployment, versioning and monitoring.
Good knowledge of cloud services, ideally AWS.
Knowledge and understanding of best practices such as testing, code management and deployment.
Mentorship and/or supervision of other team members.
You are encouraged to apply even if you don’t meet every one of the criteria above!
We value diversity and are committed to be truly inclusive and a place where everyone belongs.
#J-18808-Ljbffr