On behalf of our client, Affinity is seeking a Principal Data Scientist to help design, build, and deploy advanced machine learning and AI solutions across a broad range of business initiatives.

This is a hands-on role suited to an experienced Data Scientist who can independently lead projects from problem definition through production deployment. The successful candidate will partner with business and technical stakeholders to develop practical AI and machine learning solutions that deliver measurable business outcomes.

The ideal candidate will possess deep expertise in machine learning, statistics, predictive analytics, feature engineering, and model development, combined with excellent communication skills and the ability to explain complex analytical concepts to both technical and non-technical audiences.

This role sits within an AI Centre of Excellence and will contribute to initiatives spanning fraud detection, personalization, predictive analytics, marketing optimization, recommendation systems, member experience, experimentation, and emerging AI capabilities.

Key Responsibilities

- Design, build, test, and optimize machine learning models to solve complex business problems.
- Lead data science initiatives from problem identification through deployment and adoption.
- Work closely with business stakeholders to understand business needs and convert them into analytical solutions.
- Perform data exploration, feature engineering, feature selection, and statistical analysis.
- Develop predictive, forecasting, classification, recommendation, anomaly detection, and optimization models.
- Evaluate model performance using appropriate statistical and machine learning techniques.
- Build dashboards, reports, and visualizations to communicate insights and support decision-making.
- Collaborate with ML Engineers, Data Engineers, and business teams to operationalize machine learning solutions.
- Support production deployment, monitoring, and continuous improvement of models.
- Document methodologies, findings, and implementation approaches.
- Contribute to AI Centre of Excellence best practices,



standards, and reusable assets.

Qualifications

- 8+ years of progressive experience in Data Science, Machine Learning, Advanced Analytics, or related disciplines.
- Demonstrated experience serving as a Senior, Lead, Principal, or Staff Data Scientist.
- Proven history of building and deploying machine learning models in production environments.
- Strong understanding of supervised and unsupervised learning techniques.

- Advanced knowledge of

- Machine Learning

- Statistics

- Predictive Analytics

- Experimentation

- Feature Engineering

- Model Validation

- Model Evaluation
- Strong SQL and Python expertise.
- Experience working with large, complex datasets.
- Excellent analytical and problem-solving skills.
- Experience working within enterprise environments and cross-functional teams.

Preferred Qualifications

- Experience working with:

- Azure Machine Learning

- MLflow

- Databricks

- Azure AI Services

- Azure AI Foundry
- Experience operating within cloud-based machine learning platforms.
- Exposure to MLOps, CI/CD practices, and model deployment workflows.
- Experience working with Generative AI solutions and Agentic AI concepts.
- Experience with Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) architectures.
- Experience with recommendation systems, personalization, churn prediction, fraud detection, marketing optimization, or experimentation frameworks.
- Experience working in highly recognized enterprise organizations.
- Experience with AWS or Google Cloud Platform environments.

Top Skills Necessary

- Advanced Machine Learning & Statistical Modeling - 8+ years of experience designing, building, validating,



and improving machine learning models including statistical modeling, regression, classification, forecasting, clustering, and model evaluation.
- End-to-End Data Science Lifecycle Experience - Proven experience leading projects through the complete data science lifecycle, including:
- Data acquisition and exploration
- Data preparation and cleansing
- Feature engineering and feature selection
- Model development and validation
- Performance evaluation
- Deployment support
- Monitoring and continuous improvement
- Python & Data Science Development - 5+ years of experience working with Python to develop modern machine learning and data science libraries to build reproducible and scalable machine learning solutions
- Independent Project Delivery - Demonstrated ability to independently lead and deliver machine learning initiatives from concept through implementation and translating business problems into practical analytical and AI solutions.
- Communication & Stakeholder Management - Excellent verbal and written communication skills with the ability to present findings, recommendations, and model outputs to technical and business audiences.

Affinity Earn Know someone who’s great for this, or any of our open roles? Earn up to $4,000/year for each successful referral through Affinity Earn. You can also earn up to $50,000 for helping us find new clients. Learn about our referral program at https://affinity-group.ca/earn/ or browse our jobs & follow us at https://www.linkedin.com/company/affinity-staffing/jobs/ About Affinity Affinity Group is a technology and business consulting and services company. We believe in creating long term relationships between clients and consultants that foster a mutually beneficial partnership. Affinity is an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive workplace for all employees. All employment is decided on the basis of qualifications, merit and business need.

For more information on Affinity, please visit www.affinity-group.ca

Job Number: 13829

📌 Principal Data Scientist (Vancouver)
🏢 Affinity
📍 Vancouver