Data Scientist

ENGINEERINGUK; London; Hybrid; GBP 38,000 - 48,000; Full time

Job description

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Package Description

Job Reference: 22082
Band: Band C
Salary: £38,000 - £48,000 dependent on skills, knowledge and experience. The expected salary range for this role reflects internal benchmarking and external market insights.
Contract type: Permanent role
Location: Office Base can be London / Glasgow / Newcastle / Salford. This is a hybrid role and the successful candidate will balance office working with home working.

Closing date for applications: Tuesday 29th April 2025 at 23:59

We're happy to discuss flexible working. Please indicate your choice under the flexible working question in the application. There is no obligation to raise this at the application stage but if you wish to do so, you are welcome to. Flexible working will be part of the discussion at offer stage.

Excellent career progression - the BBC offers great opportunities for employees to seek new challenges and work in different areas of the organisation.

Unrivalled training and development opportunities - our in-house Academy hosts a wide range of internal and external courses and certification.

Benefits - We offer a negotiable salary package, a flexible 35-hour working week for work-life balance and 25 days annual leave with the option to buy an extra 5 days, a defined pension scheme and discounted dental, health care and gym.

Job Introduction

The BBC has been serving audiences online for more than 20 years. Across key products including BBC iPlayer, News, Sport, Weather and Sounds, we entertain, educate and inform audiences in their millions every day.

But behind the scenes we have work to do. We are making the shift from being a broadcaster that speaks to our audiences to becoming a service that is directly shaped by them and designed around their wants and needs. We are creating personalised content, products and services that bring the right content, to the right people, at the right time - a personalised BBC. This will be our greatest leap since iPlayer, and that's why it's right at the top of our agenda.

At the BBC we see data science as fundamental on that journey. We use data and machine learning to enrich our content and power personalised experiences for millions of audience members. We're looking for a Data Scientist to join the Account & Identity team and help accelerate the value unlocked by our existing machine learning products as well as help the discipline grow into new opportunities in areas such as sign-in, verification and user engagement & lifecycle.

Interview process

One interview comprising the following sections:

1. 15 minutes with the hiring manager, discussing the role and the candidate's skills and experience in more detail.
2. 45 minute panel interview comprising a 10 minute case study presentation and panel Q&A.
3. 45 minute panel interview comprising competency based questions.

Main Responsibilities

The role of Data Scientist at the BBC is hands-on; you'll use your technical skills to deliver value to BBC audiences. We are looking for individuals who value both breadth and depth of knowledge.

Data Scientists at the BBC are instrumental in developing machine learning products at BBC scale. You will do so as part of a highly cross-functional team, working together to overcome the challenges of delivering machine learning in production.

You'll bring experience of being an effective team contributor, and make use of your knowledge of different machine learning algorithms to solve commercial data science problems relating to BBC products. You'll build an understanding of data science best practices within an agile environment.

You'll have the opportunity to get involved with the wider data science community, both at the BBC and externally. We'd love to see enthusiasm about sharing your knowledge with others.

Are you the right candidate

Technical skills and analytical thinking:

1. A good understanding of data science and machine learning techniques.
2. Some knowledge of data science best practices.
3. An awareness of cloud services, and their utility within data science (we use AWS).
4. Good general coding skills, particularly in Python.
5. Knowledge of code management principles and deployment tools.
6. Experience with model lifecycle management and MLOps would be a plus, but not essential.

Teamwork and stakeholder management:

1. Ability to contribute effectively in a cross-functional team.
2. Ability to communicate clearly to both technical and non-technical audiences.
3. Ability to listen to others' ideas and build on them.
4. Ability to prioritise, and work in a structured manner - experience of working within a delivery framework, such as agile, would be a plus.
5. Some experience of working with data science methods / techniques intended for production.
6. Excitement about personal development and learning.

About the BBC

The BBC is committed to redeploying employees seeking suitable alternative employment within the BBC for different reasons and they will be given priority consideration ahead of other applicants. Priority consideration means for those employees seeking redeployment their application will be considered alongside anyone else at risk of redundancy, prior to any individuals being considered who are not at risk.

We don't focus simply on what we do - we also care how we do it. Our values and the way we behave are important to us. Please make sure you've read about our values and behaviours here.

Diversity matters at the BBC. We have a working environment where we value and respect every individual's unique contribution, enabling all of our employees to thrive and achieve their full potential.

We want to attract the broadest range of talented people to be part of the BBC - whether that's to contribute to our programming or our wide range of non-production roles. The more diverse our workforce, the better able we are to respond to and reflect our audiences in all their diversity.

We are committed to equality of opportunity and welcome applications from individuals, regardless of age, gender, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, socio-economic background, religion and/or belief. We will consider flexible working requests for all roles, unless operational requirements prevent otherwise.