Senior Research Data Scientist

Location: Manchester (Hybrid – 2 days per week in office)

A disruptive Manchester-based financial services SaaS company is expanding its newly formed Research & Data Science function.

Working closely with the Head of Research Data Science & Research and fellow Research Data Scientists, you’ll join in a senior capacity, playing a critical role in designing, testing and productionising advanced modelling approaches that power next-generation simulation and optimisation systems.

This is a rare opportunity to sit at the intersection of deep research, experimentation and real commercial deployment.

The Role

You will lead complex research initiatives and ensure outputs move beyond proof-of-concept into scalable, production-ready systems.

Key responsibilities include:

• Designing hypothesis-driven research frameworks and simulation environments
• Developing advanced statistical and machine learning models to solve multi-objective optimisation problems
• Contributing to model orchestration, synthetic data generation and probabilistic matching frameworks
• Evaluating model trade-offs, benchmarking approaches and validating system-level outcomes
• Exploring frontier methods such as reinforcement learning, Bayesian hierarchical modelling and generative AI
• Collaborating closely with engineering to ensure models scale effectively in production environments
• Translating research findings into clear, commercially relevant insights

About You

We’re looking for someone with deep research capability and proven commercial application.

You will have:

• A PhD in a quantitative discipline (Computer Science, Mathematics, Statistics, Physics or similar)
• Proven experience taking research from experimentation into live production systems
• Advanced expertise in statistical modelling, optimisation and machine learning
• (Bayesian methods, MCMC, reinforcement learning, multi-objective optimisation, synthetic data)
• Strong experimental design and validation experience, with a focus on reproducibility
• Hands-on Python and SQL skills
• Experience working in big-data and cloud-native environments (Spark, Databricks, Azure ML or similar)
• Understanding of governance, model explainability and ethical AI considerations
• The ability to communicate complex ideas to technical and non-technical stakeholders

Experience within fintech, payments or other high-stakes data environments is highly desirable.

Why Join?

• Be part of a greenfield Research & Data Science function
• Work on advanced simulation and optimisation problems with real-world commercial impact
• Strong investment in experimentation and innovation
• Hybrid Manchester working model
• Competitive salary and benefits

Mirai believes in the power of diversity and the importance of inclusive culture. We welcome applications from individuals of all backgrounds and perspectives, knowing that diverse teams drive stronger innovation.