UL

Senior Data Scientist - Field Business Functions

UL$100K — $130K *
Information Technology
5 - 7 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • Bachelor's degree in a quantitative field such as data science, Statistics, Mathematics, or Economics.
  • 7 to 10+ years of experience in data science, advanced analytics, or decision science.
  • Proven experience in partnering with business leaders to solve complex business problems and influence decisions.
  • Ability to lead discovery sessions and translate ambiguous business needs into clear analytical solutions.
  • Strong business acumen to align analytical work with operational and strategic outcomes.
  • Advanced proficiency in SQL and either Python or R for data analysis and modeling.
  • Experience with data visualization tools like Power BI or Tableau.

Responsibilities

  • Build trusted relationships with business leaders and teams to understand operating priorities and constraints.
  • Lead sessions to identify root causes of business challenges and determine analytics applications.
  • Translate business needs into clear problem statements and analytical plans.
  • Challenge proposed solutions that do not address the underlying business problem.
  • Own analytics initiatives from discovery through implementation and measurement of outcomes.
  • Analyze complex datasets to extract actionable insights and identify opportunities.
  • Synthesize analysis into clear narratives for executive and non-technical audiences.

Benefits

  • Health benefits including medical, dental, and vision.
  • Wellness benefits focusing on mental and financial health.
  • 401K retirement savings plan.
  • Paid time off that includes vacation and personal days.
  • Sick time off.
  • Eligible for annual bonus compensation.
Full Job Description
Job Description

We are seeking an experienced Senior Data Scientist who excels at connecting business needs with data-driven solutions. The ideal candidate has a proven record of working directly with business leaders, leading stakeholder discussions, structuring ambiguous problems, and translating analytical findings into clear recommendations and measurable outcomes. This position requires strong data science and analytics expertise, but it is specifically designed for someone whose strengths extend beyond technical delivery to include business acumen, stakeholder influence, executive communication, and solution adoption. Candidates should be comfortable challenging assumptions, guiding decisions, and collaborating with data engineering and technology teams without being primarily focused on backend development.

Responsibilities

Business Partnership and Problem Definition
  • Build trusted relationships with business leaders, functional teams, and subject matter experts to understand priorities, operating context, constraints, and decision needs.
  • Lead discovery sessions to frame ambiguous business challenges, identify root causes, define hypotheses, and determine where analytics or data science can create meaningful value.
  • Translate business needs into clear problem statements, success measures, business requirements, user stories, and analytical plans.
  • Challenge requests when the proposed solution does not address the underlying business problem and recommend a more effective approach.
  • Align stakeholders on scope, priorities, assumptions, dependencies, risks, and expected outcomes before development begins.

Analytics and Data Science Delivery
  • Own end-to-end analytics and data science initiatives from discovery and data assessment through modeling, validation, implementation, adoption, and outcome measurement.
  • Analyze large and complex datasets to identify patterns, drivers, anomalies, opportunities, and actionable insights.
  • Design, develop, and evaluate statistical, predictive, and machine learning solutions using methods appropriate to the business question.
  • Define evaluation criteria that include analytical performance, interpretability, operational feasibility, business impact, and risk.
  • Perform data profiling, cleansing, reconciliation, and validation to ensure analytical outputs are accurate, explainable, and fit for purpose.
  • Develop decision-support tools, analyses, dashboards, and prototypes using SQL, Python, R, Power BI, Excel, or related tools.

Insight Communication and Influence
  • Synthesize complex analysis into clear business narratives, options, recommendations, and implications for executive and non-technical audiences.
  • Create effective visualizations and presentations that focus on decisions, business impact, tradeoffs, and recommended actions rather than technical detail alone.
  • Facilitate stakeholder reviews, resolve conflicting perspectives, and influence decisions using evidence and sound business judgment.
  • Communicate limitations, assumptions, uncertainty, and risks transparently so stakeholders can make informed decisions.
  • Partner with users to validate outputs, incorporate feedback, drive adoption, and confirm that delivered solutions address the intended business need.

Delivery Leadership and Cross-Functional Collaboration
  • Manage analytical backlogs, priorities, user stories, acceptance criteria, and delivery progress in Azure DevOps within an Agile environment.
  • Coordinate with data engineering, application, product, and platform teams on data availability, solution design, implementation, and production readiness.
  • Provide analytical leadership without assuming primary ownership for backend platform engineering, pipelines, or infrastructure.
  • Mentor Data Scientists and Analysts in business problem framing, stakeholder engagement, analytical rigor, documentation, and insight communication.
  • Establish and promote best practices for reproducibility, model validation, documentation, governance, and responsible use of data and analytics.
  • Identify opportunities to improve processes, reporting, decision workflows, and the organization's broader analytics maturity.


Qualifications

  • Bachelor's degree in data science, Statistics, Mathematics, Computer Science, Analytics, Economics, Engineering, or a related quantitative field.
  • 7 to 10+ years of experience in data science, advanced analytics, decision science, or a closely related role.
  • Proven experience partnering directly with business leaders and senior stakeholders to solve complex business problems and influence decisions.
  • Demonstrated ability to lead discovery, gather and document requirements, define measurable outcomes, and translate ambiguous needs into analytical solutions.
  • Strong business acumen and the ability to connect analytical work to operational, customer, financial, or strategic outcomes.
  • Advanced proficiency in SQL and Python or R for data preparation, exploratory analysis, statistical modeling, and machine learning.
  • Strong foundation in statistical methods, experimentation, predictive modeling, model evaluation, and analytical interpretation.
  • Advanced experience with Power BI, Tableau, or similar tools, including the ability to design clear, decision-oriented visualizations.
  • Excellent written, verbal, presentation, facilitation, listening, influencing, and stakeholder management skills.
  • Experience delivering work in Agile environments and using Azure DevOps or a comparable work management platform.
  • Ability to manage multiple priorities, communicate delivery risks, and maintain quality in a cross-functional enterprise environment.

Preferred Qualifications
  • Master's degree in Data Science, Analytics, Statistics, Business Analytics, Economics, or a related field.
  • Experience developing business cases, defining KPIs, measuring benefits, or evaluating adoption and realized value.
  • Experience with causal inference, forecasting, optimization, NLP, deep learning, or other advanced analytical techniques.
  • Experience working with Salesforce data and reporting.
  • Experience in business services, manufacturing, field operations, or another complex enterprise environment.
  • Familiarity with cloud data platforms, data lakes, and modern enterprise analytics ecosystems.
  • Experience mentoring analytical professionals and raising standards for stakeholder-facing delivery.

Core Competencies
  • Business Problem Solving - Frames the right problem and connects analytical work to business decisions and outcomes.
  • Stakeholder Leadership - Builds trust, manages expectations, resolves ambiguity, and influences across functions and levels.
  • Analytical Judgment - Selects fit-for-purpose methods and balances rigor, interpretability, speed, and practicality.
  • Executive Communication - Turns complex findings into concise narratives, recommendations, and clear choices.
  • End-to-End Ownership - Maintains accountability from discovery through adoption and outcome measurement.
  • Cross-Functional Collaboration - Works effectively with business, data engineering, technology, and delivery teams.
  • Mentorship and Standards - Develops others and promotes quality, documentation, governance, and continuous improvement.
  • Strategic Thinking - Identifies opportunities and helps shape a longer-term analytics roadmap aligned with business priorities.

What Success Looks Like
  • Business stakeholders view the individual as a trusted analytical partner, not only a technical resource.
  • Projects begin with clearly defined business problems, decision owners, success measures, and expected value.
  • Analytical recommendations are understandable, actionable, and used in business decision-making.
  • Solutions achieve stakeholder adoption and demonstrate measurable operational or strategic impact.
  • Delivery is transparent, risks are raised early, and analytical outputs meet agreed quality and governance standards.
  • Junior team members improve their ability to engage stakeholders, structure problems, and communicate insights.

Total Rewards: We understand compensation is an important factor as you consider the next step in your career. The estimated salary range for this position is $100,000 to $130,000 USD and is based on multiple factors, including job-related knowledge/skills, experience, geographical location, as well as other factors. This position is eligible for annual bonus compensation with a target payout of 10% of the base salary. This position also provides health benefits such as medical, dental and vision; wellness benefits such as mental and financial health; and retirement savings (401K) commensurate with the standard rewards offered in each individual location or country. We also provide full-time employees with paid time off including vacation (15 days), holiday and personal days (totaling 12 days) and sick time off (72 hours).

Applications accepted until 4/1/27

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About the Team

If you like getting out and about, you'll love being part of our Field Engineering team. We travel to companies and manufacturing facilities all over the world to carry out risk-based inspections and ensure the integrity of existing certifications - we perform over 3,000 site visits every single day. It could be testing the fire doors at a school, checking a fire truck or even inspecting the New Year's Eve ball in Times Square. Every day's different and there's always a new challenge to face. If you love an adventure, join our team and take your career to new and exciting places.

About UL

UL is a global safety certification company headquartered in Northbrook, Illinois. It was founded in 1894 and has been providing safety testing, inspection, and certification services for over 125 years. UL operates in over 100 countries and has more than 14,000 employees worldwide. The company's mission is to promote safe living and working environments by advancing safety science. UL's services cover a wide range of industries, including consumer products, industrial equipment, building materials, and more.
Learn more about UL
Size
14,700 employees
Industry
Founded
1900

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