VP, Recommendation Science, Media Group Decision Sciences - NBCUniversal

We create world-class content, which we distribute across our portfolio of film, television, and streaming, and bring to life through our theme parks and consumer experiences. We own and operate leading entertainment and news brands, including NBC, NBC News, MSNBC, CNBC, NBC Sports, Telemundo, NBC Local Stations, Bravo, USA Network, and Peacock, our premium ad-supported streaming service. We produce and distribute premier filmed entertainment and programming through Universal Filmed Entertainment Group and Universal Studio Group, and have world-renowned theme parks and attractions through Universal Destinations & Experiences. NBCUniversal is a subsidiary of Comcast Corporation.

Here you can be your authentic self. As a company uniquely positioned to educate, entertain and empower through our platforms, Comcast NBCUniversal stands for including everyone. Our Diversity, Equity and Inclusion initiatives, coupled with our Corporate Social Responsibility work, is informed by our employees, audiences, park guests and the communities in which we live. We strive to foster a diverse, equitable and inclusive culture where our employees feel supported, embraced and heard. Together, we’ll continue to create and deliver content that reflects the current and ever-changing face of the world.

Our Direct-to-Consumer (DTC) portfolio is a powerhouse collection of consumer-first brands, supported by media industry leaders, Comcast, NBCUniversal and Sky. When you join our team, you’ll work across our dynamic portfolio including Peacock, NOW, Fandango, SkyShowtime, Showmax, and TV Everywhere, powering streaming across more than 70 countries globally. And the evolution doesn’t stop there. With unequalled scale, our teams make the most out of every opportunity to collaborate and learn from one another. We’re always looking for ways to innovate faster, accelerate our growth and consistently offer the very best in consumer experience. But most of all, we’re backed by a culture of respect. We embrace authenticity and inspire people to thrive.

Are you ready to go beyond classic predictive analytics to new areas like deep learning and reinforcement learning? Do you want to be a part of the team that builds an advanced recommender engine, active learning platform, personalized solutions for product, marketing, and advertisement? Join the world-class international team of smart, hungry, and fearless professionals who are working at the cutting edge of technology and science at the epicenter of content, technology, and culture.  

As part of the Media Group Data Science team, the VP, Recommendation Science will be a strategic partner in collaboration with Product and Technology to deliver industry-defining personalization. They will provide leadership and mentorship for a team of data scientists in the design and execution of advanced personalization models and heuristics, including but not limited to, content recommendations, product experience personalization, GenAI-based image and text personalization, and personalized ad services. They will further provide guidance and support for cross-functional team of architects, analysts, ML Engineers, and software developers as they integrate personalized data products and capabilities across our suite of global and domestic products. This is a dynamic cohort of high-caliber, opinionated leaders across Product, Technology, Marketing, and Content Discovery committed to building a state-of-the-art real-time video streaming service 

Responsibilities include, but are not limited to: 

• Build and strategically lead a high-performance team of data scientists in an experimentation-led environment.  
• Lead the data science team in the development of a recommendation system modeling and experimentation framework. 
• Work with business stakeholders to define priorities, best approaches and business requirements for analytical and experimentation solutions. 
• Lead work with engineering teams to define data science driven requirement and solutions for major initiatives and opportunities of the streaming service functionality. 
• Drive innovation of the statistical and machine learning methodologies and tools used by the team. Lead improvements in machine learning lifecycle infrastructure.  
• Drive a data science culture that inspires and motivates the team to succeed. 

• Advanced (Master or PhD) degree with specialization in Statistics, Computer Science, Data Science, Economics, Mathematics, Operations Research or another quantitative field or equivalent. 
• Minimum 10 years of combined experience in software development, analytics, or data science  
• Experience with commercial recommender systems or a lead role in an advanced research recommender system project. 
• Demonstrable experience with deep learning, including computer vision, computational linguistics/conversational AI, or recommender systems. 
• Good understanding of algorithmic complexity of model training and testing, particularly for real-time and near real-time models.  
• Proven ownership and entrepreneurship enabling and leading high performing cross-functional experimentation programs. 
• Proficiency in Python. 

Desired Characteristics: 

• Experience in content streaming or commerce as a senior contributor to AI/ML-powered product features and user experiences. 
• Experience with reinforcement learning based systems.  
• Knowledge of enterprise-level digital analytics platforms (e.g. Adobe Analytics, Google Analytics, etc.). 
• Experience with large-scale video assets. 
• Ability to build trust across the organization and socialize solutions and identified data insights. 
• Go, Scala, or Java is a plus. 
• Cloud certification (with exam) in either solutions architecture or Machine Learning from AWS, Google, Microsoft, or other major cloud software provider 

Hybrid: This position has been designated as hybrid, generally contributing from the office a minimum of three days per week.

This position is eligible for company sponsored benefits, including medical, dental and vision insurance, 401(k), paid leave, tuition reimbursement, and a variety of other discounts and perks. Learn more about the benefits offered by NBCUniversal by visiting the Benefits page of the Careers website. Salary range: $250,000-$300,000 (bonus & LTI eligible)

As part of our selection process, external candidates may be required to attend an in-person interview with an NBCUniversal employee at one of our locations prior to a hiring decision.

NBCUniversal's policy is to provide equal employment opportunities to all applicants and employees without regard to race, color, religion, creed, gender, gender identity or expression, age, national origin or ancestry, citizenship, disability, sexual orientation, marital status, pregnancy, veteran status, membership in the uniformed services, genetic information, or any other basis protected by applicable law. 

If you are a qualified individual with a disability or a disabled veteran, you have the right to request a reasonable accommodation if you are unable or limited in your ability to use or access nbcunicareers.com as a result of your disability. You can request reasonable accommodations by emailing AccessibilitySupport@nbcuni.com.