Senior Manager, Data Science

Viking River Cruises is seeking a highly skilled and innovative Data Scientist to join our Advanced Analytics team. Reporting to our Director Advanced Analytics you will play a pivotal in driving data-driven decision-making and enhancing customer engagement across all channels. Our ideal candidate will have a strong background in predictive modeling personalization engines and cross-functional collaboration.

This is a hybrid position based in our Woodland Hills CA office. You will be required to adhere to our hybrid work policy working from our office Monday and Thursday plus one additional weekday on a weekly basis.

Job Responsibilities:

• Design build and refine predictive models to optimize customer engagement across digital and offline channels.
• Define iterate and implement a dynamic Next Best Action (NBA) engine to deliver personalized recommendations aligned with booked passenger goals and preferences.
• Ensure the integrity and accuracy of data through rigorous testing and validation of models.
• Apply advanced statistical and machine learning techniques to understand customer behavior and campaign performance.
• Wrangle process cleanse verify and enrich data from different sources used for analysis and modeling.
• Proven experience with data analytics feature engineering and building end-to-end ML pipelines
• Familiarity with fine-tuning and applying Large Language Models (LLMs) such as GPT LLaMA or Claude for NLP and generative tasks
• Familiarity with vector databases and retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) pipelines
• Experience integrating AI/ML models into secure or cloud-hosted environments
• Translate complex data into actionable insights to support strategic initiatives across sales marketing and operations.
• Develop and maintain dashboards and reporting tools to monitor model performance and business impact.
• Partner with cross-functional teams to identify opportunities for data-driven enhancements and integrating predictive models into customer-facing platforms
• Develop best practices in model governance and deployment.

Job Requirements:

• Masters or Ph.D. in Data Science Statistics Computer Science or related fields.
• 8 years of relevant experience in predictive modeling machine learning and personalization systems.
• Proficiency in Python R SQL cloud-based platforms (e.g. AWS Azure) data platforms like Databricks and ML frameworks such as PyTorch TensorFlow or Scikit-learn
• Experience with recommendation systems NBA frameworks and customer journey analytics.
• Understanding of software engineering foundations including clean code practices testing version control and CI/CD workflows.
• Comprehensive understanding of the ML lifecycle from experimentation to model development and deployment.
• Strong communication skills and ability to present technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders.

Preferred Skills:

• Background in travel and hospitality
• Familiarity with tools like Power BI
• Knowledge of customer segmentation lifecycle modeling and A/B testing.

What We Offer You:

Highly competitive compensation plan.

o Salary range $200000 - $240000 annually determined by a myriad of factors including but not limited to years of experience depth of experience individual qualifications and other relevant business considerations.

o Employees are eligible for annual discretionary bonus.

o 401(k) plan with company match.

o Employee Share Purchase Plan (ESPP) Viking full-time regular employees working in the United States can purchase Viking shares through payroll deductions.

Full benefits including medical dental vision life and disability insurance at a highly subsidized rate (some plans are fully paid by Viking).

Accrue 15 paid vacation days sick time accrual by state and 6 paid holidays per year.

Opportunity to take a free and/or discounted cruise.

Highly subsidized gym membership.

Discounts on theatres theme parks movie tickets travel discounts through IATA membership and too many more discounts to name.

Viking is a certified Great Place to Work company. This certification is a result of our commitment to excellence integrity and our teams outstanding contributions.

About Viking

Viking was founded in 1997 and provides destination-focused voyages on oceans riversand lake around the world. Designed for experienced travelers with interests in science history culture and cuisine Chairman Torstein Hagen often says Viking offers experiences for The Thinking Person.

Viking has more than 250 awards to its name including being rated #1 for Rivers #1 for Oceans and #1 for Expeditions byCondé Nast Traveler and voted at the top of its categories byTravel Leisure. No other cruise line has ever received these same honors by both publications at the same time.