Senior Director Decision Science

Empower$151K — $220K *
US-AnywhereRemote in United States
Enterprise Technology
8 - 10 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Business, or a related field.
  • 9+ years of experience in decision science, applied data science, optimization, or equivalent fields.
  • 3+ years of experience in management roles leading senior practitioners.
  • Proven experience in enterprise-scale, real-time decisioning systems.
  • Expertise in optimization and experimentation techniques, including uplift modeling and experimental design.
  • Strong proficiency in SQL and Python, capable of guiding technical teams.
  • Demonstrated ability to influence senior leaders with strong business acumen and executive communication skills.

Responsibilities

  • Define and oversee the enterprise decisioning strategy and key performance indicators aligned with business outcomes.
  • Govern and prioritize the decision engine roadmap in collaboration with multiple departments.
  • Communicate project timelines, constraints, and risks to executive stakeholders effectively.
  • Maintain accountability for the architecture and lifecycle management of the decision engine.
  • Direct teams in optimizing decision strategies to meet business goals like sales growth and client retention.
  • Design and deploy decision policies that enhance action sequence for clients and prospects.
  • Establish robust standards for experimentation and risk management in decision processes.

Benefits

  • Medical, dental, vision and life insurance
  • Retirement savings - 401(k) plan with company matching contributions and financial advisory services
  • Tuition reimbursement up to $5,250/year
  • Generous paid time off including ten paid company holidays and floating holidays
  • Paid volunteer time of 16 hours per calendar year
  • Comprehensive leave of absence programs including paid parental leave
  • Inclusive Business Resource Groups (BRGs) fostering community engagement.
Full Job Description
The Senior Director Decision Science will provide enterprise-level leadership for real-time decisioning and next-best-action systems that translate predictive insights into governed, auditable decision policies. This role owns the strategy, execution, and measurable business impact of next-best-action decisions and decision sequences delivered across omni-channel touchpoints through integrated systems and APIs, including lead routing to Sales and Service. The Senior Director Decision Science will lead the end-to-end roadmap, design, implementation, and ongoing operation of the enterprise decision engine serving all prospects and existing clients.

What you will do:
  • Define and own the enterprise decisioning charter, objectives, operating model, guardrails, and KPI trees aligned to strategic business outcomes, including prospect and existing client fatigue, fairness, and privacy.
  • Establish and govern the enterprise roadmap for the decision engine, including prioritization of next-best-action and lead-routing initiatives in partnership with Sales, Marketing, Product, Technology, and Client Services.
  • Balance delivery commitments, technical constraints, and strategic trade-offs while communicating timing, dependencies, and risks to executive stakeholders.
  • Maintain end-to-end accountability for the architecture, build, performance, governance, and lifecycle management of a real-time decision engine powering next-best-action decisions and decision sequences at scale.
  • Direct teams responsible for translating enterprise goals, such as sales growth, engagement, and retention, into eligibility schemas, fatigue and frequency limits, fairness constraints, reward functions, and constrained optimization approaches.
  • Oversee the design and deployment of decision policies, optimization frameworks, and sequencing logic that deliver the best action or action sequence for each prospect or existing client.
  • Establish standards for experimentation, rollout, and risk management, incorporating canaries, bandit approaches, A/B testing, and statistically sound ship, iterate, and stop decisions.
  • Partner with personalization, experimentation, and analytics leaders to co-own experimentation strategy, learning agendas, and measurement frameworks.
  • Lead cross-functional technology delivery by setting requirements and direction for real-time decision APIs, integrations, rules engines, data models, and logging frameworks.
  • Ensure enterprise standards for versioning, audit trails, rollback and disaster recovery plans, incident response, and service-level agreements.
  • Maintain canonical decision metrics, fairness and eligibility checks, transparent decision logs, and audit-ready documentation to support reporting, regulatory review, and internal governance.
  • Build, lead, and develop a team of Decision Science and Technical Product Management leaders; set expectations, coach performance, and grow enterprise decisioning capabilities.


What you will bring:
  • Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Business, or a related field.
  • 9+ years of experience in decision science, applied data science, optimization, or equivalent fields.
  • 3+ years of experience leading managers or senior practitioners in a people management capacity.
  • Proven leadership in the design, delivery, and governance of enterprise-scale, real-time decisioning and decision policy systems.
  • Deep expertise in optimization and experimentation techniques, including uplift modeling, bandits, experimental design, generalized linear models, allocation models, and related approaches.
  • Strong proficiency in SQL and Python, with the ability to guide technical standards and review work at scale.
  • Experience directing teams that build or integrate real-time, API-driven decisioning platforms.
  • Strong business and financial acumen, with demonstrated executive communication skills and the ability to influence senior leaders.
  • Strategic thinking skills, with the ability to balance near-term delivery with long-term platform and capability vision.
  • Demonstrated success shipping and operating decision or rules engines in production, including integration with feature stores and model registries.
  • Experience overseeing experimental design and measurement practices across teams.
  • Strong intuition for end-customer needs and behaviors, and the ability to translate insights into scalable decision strategies.
  • Demonstrated ability to navigate complex, matrixed organizations to drive enterprise priorities.
  • Working curiosity and applied understanding of emerging artificial intelligence capabilities and their impact on decisioning, optimization, and governance.


What will set you apart:
  • MBA or advanced degree.


This job operates in a professional office environment.

This job description is not intended to be an exhaustive list of all duties, responsibilities and qualifications of the job. The employer has the right to revise this job description at any time. You will be evaluated in part based on your performance of the responsibilities and/or tasks listed in this job description. You may be required to perform other duties that are not included on this job description. The job description is not a contract for employment, and either you or the employer may terminate employment at any time, for any reason, as per terms and conditions of your employment contract.

What we offer you

We offer an array of diverse and inclusive benefits regardless of where you are in your career. We believe that providing our employees with the means to lead healthy balanced lives results in the best possible work performance.
  • Medical, dental, vision and life insurance
  • Retirement savings - 401(k) plan with generous company matching contributions (up to 6%), financial advisory services, potential company discretionary contribution, and a broad investment lineup
  • Tuition reimbursement up to $5,250/year
  • Business-casual environment that includes the option to wear jeans
  • Generous paid time off upon hire - including a paid time off program plus ten paid company holidays and three floating holidays each calendar year
  • Paid volunteer time - 16 hours per calendar year
  • Leave of absence programs - including paid parental leave, paid short- and long-term disability, and Family and Medical Leave (FMLA)
  • Business Resource Groups (BRGs) - BRGs facilitate inclusion and collaboration across our business internally and throughout the communities where we live, work and play. BRGs are open to all.


Base Salary Range
$151,800.00 - $220,050.00

The salary range above shows the typical minimum to maximum base salary range for this position in the location listed. Non-sales positions have the opportunity to participate in a bonus program. Sales positions are eligible for sales incentives, and in some instances a bonus plan, whereby total compensation may far exceed base salary depending on individual performance. Actual compensation offered may vary from posted hiring range based upon geographic location, work experience, education, licensure requirements and/or skill level and will be finalized at the time of offer.

About Empower

Empower is a retirement plan recordkeeping financial holding company based in Greenwood Village, Colorado, United States. It is the second-largest retirement plan provider in the United States.
Learn more about Empower

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