Senior Data Scientist – Data & Personalization Platform

Rewards Network

Senior Data Scientist leading the technical evolution of a personalization platform at Rewards Network. Involved in designing data systems that match members to offers using advanced tech and analytics.

Posted 5/1/2026full-timeChicago • Illinois • 🇺🇸 United StatesSenior💰 $135,000 - $150,000 per yearWebsite

Tech Stack

Tools & technologies

AirflowAWSKafkaPostgresPythonSQL

About the role

Key responsibilities & impact

We're looking for a Senior Data Scientist to help lead the technical evolution of a large-scale personalization and assignment platform.
You'll design and own the data systems that match members to offers — from batch pipelines processing hundreds of millions to billions of records to the scoring frameworks that decide what each member sees.
This is a senior individual contributor role with technical leadership scope.
You won't have direct reports, but you'll help set technical direction, guide junior data scientists and engineers, and own workstreams end-to-end.
The platform is actively evolving toward ML-driven personalization and generative AI, and we're looking for someone who wants to help shape that direction.

Requirements

What you’ll need

Master’s degree in data science or related field
5+ years of experience in a data science role
Strong technical foundation across both data science and data engineering — this role owns and directs production pipelines, not just analysis.
Proven experience designing and leading large-scale data processing systems (hundreds of millions to billions of records), including batch architecture, partitioning, staging, and performance optimization.
Track record designing activity-based segmentation and tiering frameworks (e.g., RFM-style models, engagement tiers, merchant activity classifications) — from threshold definition through refresh cadence and validation against business outcomes.
Hands-on background building scoring, ranking, or recommendation frameworks, with feature selection, weighting strategies (rule-based, heuristic, or ML-driven), and evaluation against business objectives; experience evolving such systems from deterministic scoring toward ML-based personalization.
Experience designing and managing customer segmentation pipelines and feature generation at scale, including the lifecycle management of member groups, derived attributes, and reusable feature sets.
Experience with workflow orchestration (Airflow/MWAA or equivalent) and AWS data services (S3, Glue, Aurora/PostgreSQL).
Strong SQL and Python skills — able to review, guide, and produce production-quality data pipeline code.
Understanding of event-driven architectures and Kafka-based data replication patterns.
Experience with or strong understanding of real-time or near-real-time data systems, and the ability to provide architectural guidance even when not the primary builder.
Ability to define pipeline SLAs and data freshness guarantees, including monitoring, alerting, and incident response for batch and near-real-time workflows.
Experience working with large-scale member or customer data in a personalization, targeting, loyalty, or recommendation context.
Demonstrated ability to work cross-functionally and influence without authority; self-directed and able to own a workstream end-to-end with minimal oversight.
Strong written and verbal communication; able to produce clear documentation and present findings to non-technical audiences.

Benefits

Comp & perks

Comprehensive benefits package, which includes:
Competitive Time Off Benefits: including flexible PTO, 11 company holidays, and parental leave.
Generous dining reimbursement when you dine with our restaurant clients
401(k) plan with a company match
Two medical plan options- Standard PPO or High Deductible Health Plan (HSA with company match for HDHP participants)
Partnership with Rx n Go, offering certain prescriptions for free
Two dental plan options and a vision plan
Flexible Spending Accounts and a pre-tax commuter benefit program
Accident, Critical Illness, and Hospital Indemnity Insurance Plans
Short Term and Long Term disability
Company-paid life insurance and AD&D insurance, supplemental employee, spouse, and child life insurance
Employee Life Assistance Program
Hybrid working environment in a new office space downtown near the Metra Train stations and catered lunches on Tuesdays.

ATS Keywords

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Hard Skills & Tools

data sciencedata engineeringbatch processingperformance optimizationscoring frameworksfeature selectionworkflow orchestrationSQLPythonevent-driven architecture

Soft Skills

technical leadershipcross-functional collaborationinfluence without authorityself-directedcommunicationdocumentationpresentation skills

Certifications

Master’s degree in data science