Senior Data Scientist
About Us:
Perpay is a certified B Corp and Philadelphia’s most impactful growth-stage startup. We are driven by a mission to significantly improve the financial stability of everyday Americans. For the past decade, we have established strong product-market fit and a profitable, efficient operating model across a suite of products, positioning Perpay as the premier financial partner for consumers with subprime credit.
With over 500,000 customers who have utilized more than $1 billion in spending power, we are at a pivotal moment. We are scaling our operations, building new offerings, and deepening our impact. We are looking for teammates eager to join us on this journey.
Our venture partners include First Round Capital and L Catterton.
Products we’ve built to make an impact:
- Perpay Marketplace: Combines interest-free payments and modern e-commerce to reduce cost of ownership and promote healthy repayment behavior.
- Perpay+: Leverages Marketplace repayment history to help members monitor and build credit with all 3 credit bureaus.
- Perpay Credit Card: Expands access to the flexibility and benefits of a World Mastercard by removing common barriers like high security deposits and low approval odds.
Our team thrives on in-person collaboration, operating from our unique center-city Philadelphia office. This comfortable "home away from home" space offers river views and fosters rapid product development, strong relationships, and career growth. The energy from achieving big wins is palpable here. While we primarily work in the office, we offer sensible flexibility for personal needs, such as sick children or urgent errands, and coordinate official remote weeks around major holidays. If you are passionate about a meaningful mission, collaboration, equity, and generous perks, Perpay is the best place to be in Philadelphia right now.
About the Role:
As a Senior Data Scientist at Perpay, you will be a critical player in the day-to-day success of the business, supporting new and existing product initiatives through strong analytical skills and machine learning expertise. In addition, you will be responsible for helping shape the future of the data science team by developing processes and systems that scale with our rapidly growing business. This is an exciting opportunity to make a positive impact on the execution of Perpay’s mission and the lives of our customers. We are looking for someone who is passionate about all aspects of data science: from machine learning and exploratory data analysis to communication of results and real-time deployments. This crucial role will sit on our data science team and report to the Data Science Manager. If you’re looking for a collaborative team that you can bounce ideas off of and learn from, this is where you belong. We are about being curious, setting the standard and building good habits at Perpay.
Our greatest strength is our people and we’d love for you to be one of them!
Responsibilities:
- Drive the end-to-end completion of data science initiatives, collaborating with stakeholders from ideation through execution, ensuring projects deliver strong impact to our customer’s financial lives and the health of the business
- Proactively identify opportunities for the data science team to improve and expand Perpay’s business model using techniques from exploratory data analysis to machine learning models, leveraging subject matter expertise of Perpay’s business model
- Support the growth of the business by delivering scalable models and algorithms while maintaining and troubleshooting existing resources
- Deploy and maintain real-time model inference resources and infrastructure
- Deploy and maintain machine learning pipelines including batch processing and continuous training architecture
- Contribute to the cross-discipline adoption and responsible use of AI/LLM models and services at Perpay
- Present results and analyses to the a wide range of audiences: from Perpay's leadership team to non-technical peers
- Contribute to defining standards and best practices concerning workflow and adoption of new technologies within the Data Science team
- Act as an informal mentor peers
What You’ll Bring:
- 5+ years of experience* and expertise applying machine learning techniques in industry
- 5+ years of experience* and expertise in producing data analysis, exploratory data analysis and data visualization in industry
- 5+ years of experience* and expertise in developing, deploying, maintaining real-time software (e.g. models exposed as APIs)
- 5+ years of experience* and expertise in Cloud compute infrastructure and best practices, including familiarity with tools such as terraform and Cloud Formation
- Bachelor's degree or higher in a quantitative/technical field (Mathematics, Statistics, Engineering, Chemistry, Physics)
- Excellent communication skills, across a range of audiences from technical to non-technical
- Strong business acumen, demonstrated through subject matter expertise in at least one industry
- Capable of managing projects “end to end” including managing project scope, timelines and workloads
- Advanced proficiency in Python and standard data science stack (e.g. scikit-learn, pandas, numpy, matplotlib, etc.)
- Team player: willingness and ability to establish strong working relationships not just within the data science team itself, but across the organization
*Internships not included
Nice to have:
- Expertise in multiple advanced machine learning methodologies: e.g. deep learning, probabilistic programming, mathematical optimization, etc.
- Deep familiarity in multiple advanced machine learning frameworks: e.g. tensorflow, pytorch, pymc, etc.
- Experience with scalable compute frameworks such as Spark or Polars
- Experience with deployment frameworks such as Kubernetes
What We’ll Bring to Full-time Team Members:
- Meaningful compensation and equity
- Premium medical benefits (fully paid base plan, and very reasonable premium for the buy-up option)
- 4% employer 401k match
- Unlimited PTO policy
- Remote weeks around major holidays + extra holiday on weekends like MDW and LDW
- High quality catered lunch by local chefs, 4 days / week
- Gym subsidy
- Paid cell phone + plan
- Student loan repayment program
- Relocation assistance
- Generous team member discounts
This is not a remote opportunity; it is 100% onsite (#LI-Onsite) (#LI-TH1) (#LI-AK1)
Perpay is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We value diversity in all its forms and are committed to creating an inclusive environment. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender identity, sexual orientation, sex (including pregnancy), marital status, political affiliation, age, veteran status, disability status or other non-merit factor. Please contact us at careers@perpay.com to request accommodation.