Data Scientist

About Focal Systems: Focal Systems is the premier, internationally recognized retail AI pioneer, deep learning innovator, and computer vision software leader on an absolute mission to automate and optimize the global brick-and-mortar retail ecosystem. Headquartered in San Francisco, California, with major operational branches in Canada and the United Kingdom alongside an advanced engineering hub in Poland, Focal Systems operates as a Deep Learning First corporation. The company’s state-of-the-art visual detection platforms are deployed at scale with more than 10 of the most prominent retailers in the world, backed by a world-class roster of elite venture capital investors, tech advisors, and industry partners. Focal Systems champions a rigorous, tightly knit team environment focused on continuous technological improvement, giving exceptional individual contributors the ultimate global canvas to push the state-of-the-art and deploy machine learning architectures safely across international commercial networks.

Position Overview

We are seeking a highly analytical, systems-minded Data Scientist - UK to join our core centralized Analytics division in a full-time remote capacity restricted to candidates resident in the United Kingdom. Operating as a senior individual contributor and statistical force multiplier, you will claim individual architectural accountability for owning end-to-end analytical problems that combine applied statistics, experimental design, and machine learning to drive measurable improvements in product accuracy. Shifting completely away from superficial data decoration or passive list reporting, you will tackle ambiguous, open-ended retail automation challenges, establishing robust technical directions and predictive baselines. This high-agency seat requires a rigorous data scientist with 5+ years of quantitative history who manages complex database queries fluidly, validates system outputs against real-world uncertainty, and mentors junior analysts to elevate analytics quality across the company.

Key Responsibilities

• End-to-End Analytical Problem Ownership: Own and drive the full operational pipeline from original problem framing and key metric definition through data acquisition, validation modeling, and multi-tenant stakeholder rollout.
• Advanced Statistical Modeling Architecture: Design, build, and optimize robust predictive and inferential data models, engineering localized forecasts, propensity matrices, uplift tracks, and duration or survival analyses natively using Data Scientist parameters.
• High-Throughput SQL Database Triage: Extract, compile, and clean extensive quantitative datasets across distributed data systems, writing complex CTEs, analytical window functions, and optimized staging routines natively leveraging SQL parameters.
• Causal Inference and Experimental Design: Formulate and evaluate controlled product experiments, designing comprehensive A/B testing frameworks, reasoning through complex causality loops, and quantifying data uncertainties rigorously.
• Python Framework Automation: Program and scale reusable analytical scripts, model pipelines, and mathematical transformations natively utilizing Python, pandas, NumPy, and statsmodels tools.
• System Output Auditing and Feedback loops: Audit computer vision system outputs systematically, compiling structured feedback registries to optimize real-world product detection accuracy and reliability.
• BI Dashboard Narrative Delivery: Synthesize complex statistical findings into clear narratives and interactive data visualizations, implementing metrics reports natively over Snowflake, Looker, or Sigma platforms.
• Data Quality Standardization: Author and govern global team data contracts, technical reproducibility best practices, and standard operating procedures (SOPs) to raise the team’s core quality bar.

Required Skills & Qualifications

• 5+ years of verified professional history running advanced data science, quantitative analytics, statistical software engineering, or algorithmic business intelligence consulting.
• Proven track record successfully designing, analyzing, and shipping production-grade statistical models or controlled A/B testing experiments that directly optimized product or operational decisions.
• Deep, authoritative technical command of relational database manipulation, showing hands-on experience optimizing queries natively using advanced SQL components.
• Expert-tier programming proficiency writing maintainable, scalable data processing, modeling, and visualization scripts natively leveraging Python frameworks (pandas/NumPy).
• Solid grounding in applied statistics, with demonstrated command over hypothesis testing, multivariable regression tracking, and mathematical uncertainty quantification.
• Outstanding verbal and written communication traits, with a proven capacity to influence cross-functional product and engineering cells without direct structural authority.
• Location Context: Parameters open exclusively to qualified quantitative scientists base-stationed permanently within the **United Kingdom** to execute analytical duties under a 100% remote salaried work-from-home model.

Preferred Strategic Indicators (Nice to Have)

• Prior professional experience operating within an operationally complex environment, such as brick-and-mortar retail, global logistics networks, or physical marketplaces.
• Practical operational familiarity navigating cloud data warehouses like Snowflake, or running enterprise BI infrastructure (e.g., Looker, Sigma, or Tableau).
• Demonstrated experience conducting technical methodology reviews, managing repository code reviews, or mentoring junior scientists.
• An outcome-driven, problem-solving personal philosophy that treats messy data as evidence and enjoys breaking open-ended questions down into credible execution plans.

What We Offer

• High-Yield UK Salaried Canvas: An attractive full-time base salary scale structured transparently between £60,000 – £70,000 GBP per year, calibrated precisely to evaluate and reward your statistical authority and analytics velocity, supplemented by attractive stock options.
• The exceptional professional canvas to directly direct, shape, and code-engineer the data science architectures and computer vision systems automated-powering the world largest physical retail networks.
• Profound work-from-home remote parameters providing an elite digital workplace, complete scheduling trust, and zero physical office geographical commuting friction within the United Kingdom.
• Immediate eligibility to access comprehensive corporate pension contribution frameworks and continuous learning budgets.
• Access to elite annual leave provisions, including generous paid vacation configurations, sick leave policies, and comprehensive parental leave allocations.
• A seat inside a tightly-knit, highly versatile team of top-performing professionals drawn from prominent global universities, research labs, and technology conglomerates.