Data Scientist

Our Company

Explore how you can contribute at AmeriLife.

For over 50 years AmeriLife has been a leader in the development marketing and distribution of annuity life and health insurance solutions for those planning for and living in retirement.

Associates get satisfaction from knowing they provide agents marketers and carrier partners the support needed to succeed in a rapidly evolving industry.

Job Summary

Job Description

Why This Role Stands Out

• Databricks-first platform Lakehouse architecture with Unity Catalog MLflow and scalable compute
• Real AI work design and deploy AI agents RAG systems and LLM-powered solutions in production
• End-to-end ownership from problem framing through deployment and monitoring
• Direct business impact work with business leaders on high-visibility initiatives
• Shape the future influence technical direction tooling and best practices on a growing team

What Youll Do

As a Data Scientist on our AI & Data Science team you will partner with engineering analytics and business stakeholders to translate complex problems into scalable production-ready solutions. Your work will span the full lifecycle from exploratory analysis through model deployment and ongoing optimization.

Day-to-day you will design and build predictive models for forecasting and optimization develop intelligent automation using AI agents and large language models engineer features and pipelines on the Databricks Lakehouse platform and evaluate and iterate on both traditional ML and generative AI solutions to ensure they deliver reliable business value.

This role is ideal for someone who thrives at the intersection of rigorous statistical thinking practical data engineering and applied AI innovation and who wants to do that work on a modern platform where their contributions are visible and valued.

Technical Requirements

Statistics & Machine Learning

Required

• Strong foundation in statistical modeling and ML with experience selecting appropriate approaches for different business problems
• Proven experience building and validating time-series forecasting models in production environments
• Hands-on expertise with ensemble/boosting algorithms (XGBoost LightGBM) for structured data
• Experience with A/B testing design hypothesis testing and rigorous model evaluation techniques
• Comfort working with imperfect real-world datasets handling missing data class imbalance and feature drift

Preferred

• Unsupervised learning (clustering anomaly detection) hierarchical/probabilistic forecasting Bayesian methods or causal inference
• Experience optimizing models for business ROI; exposure to reinforcement learning or advanced optimization

Databricks Platform & Data Engineering

Required

• Strong Python proficiency for data analysis modeling and production development
• Experience with Databricks notebooks clusters and workflows for data science and ML
• Working knowledge of PySpark for large-scale data processing and feature engineering
• Advanced SQL skills across Lakehouse architectures; experience with MLflow for experiment tracking and model registry
• Clean testable code practices with Git-based version control (e.g. Databricks Repos GitHub)

Preferred

• Unity Catalog Delta Lake/Delta Live Tables medallion architecture patterns
• Databricks Feature Store Model Serving Workflows orchestration or data quality frameworks
• Experience designing APIs for model serving; CI/CD for ML workflows
• Databricks Accreditations: Fundamentals

Cloud & Infrastructure

Required

• Hands-on cloud platform experience (Azure preferred; AWS/GCP also valued) with Docker containerization
• Understanding of cloud-native data architectures distributed processing and data governance/RBAC

Preferred

• Azure ecosystem experience (Data Factory Azure AI Services Azure OpenAI); MLOps practices and model monitoring
• Certification: Azure Fundamentals or AWS Cloud Practicioner

Applied AI & Intelligent Automation

Required

• Hands-on prompt engineering and LLM integration for production use cases
• Experience building or orchestrating AI agents and multi-step workflows (LangChain LangGraph or similar)
• Ability to evaluate AI outputs systematically and implement guardrails for reliability and safety
• Strong judgment on when to apply traditional ML vs. generative AI and the trade-offs involved

Preferred

• Enterprise LLM experience (fine-tuning evaluation deployment); RAG architectures with vector databases and semantic search
• NLP/text analytics; transformer architectures; Databricks Mosaic AI or Foundation Model APIs
• Structured AI evaluation methods (offline/online testing human-in-the-loop); computer vision exposure

Experience & Business Impact

Required

• 3 years in data science machine learning or applied AI roles
• Proven ability to communicate complex results as clear actionable insights for technical and non-technical audiences
• Full production ownership experience from problem definition through deployment monitoring and iteration
• Experience leading team-level projects with planning execution and delivery accountability

Preferred

• Insurance financial services healthcare or regulated industry experience
• Track record of influencing technical direction and elevating team practices

Our Tech Stack

• Data Platform: Databricks (Lakehouse Unity Catalog Delta Lake MLflow Workflows)
• Languages: Python SQL PySpark
• AI/ML: LangChain LangGraph Azure OpenAI Hugging Face scikit-learn XGBoost
• Cloud: Microsoft Azure (Data Factory AI Services DevOps)
• Dev Tools: Git Docker VS Code / Cursor IDE CI/CD pipelines

Education & Location

• Bachelors or Masters in Data Science Computer Science Statistics Applied Mathematics Engineering or related quantitative field. Equivalent experience with a strong portfolio also considered.
• U.S.-based; remote-friendly with potential hybrid arrangements depending on business needs

Compensation

• Salary Range: $125000to $135000

• Salary offers will varycommensuratewith experience education skills and training

What AmeriLife Offers

A comprehensive benefits package that includes PTO medical dental vision retirement savings disability insurance and life insurance.

Equal Employment Opportunity Statement

We are an Equal Opportunity Employer and value diversity at all levels of the organization. All employment decisions are made without regard to race color religion creed sex (including pregnancy childbirth breastfeeding or related medical conditions) sexual orientation gender identity or expression age national origin ancestry disability genetic information marital status veteran or military status or any other protected characteristic under applicable federal state or local law. We are committed to providing an inclusive equitable and respectful workplace where all employees can thrive.

Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) Statement

We are committed to full compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and all applicable state and local disability laws. Reasonable accommodations are available to qualified applicants and employees with disabilities throughout the application and employment process. Requests for accommodation will be handled confidentially. If you require assistance or accommodation during the application process please contact us at .

Pay Transparency Statement

We are committed to pay transparency and equity in accordance with applicable federal state and local laws. Compensation for this role will be determined based on skills qualifications experience and market factors. Where required by law the pay range for this position will be disclosed in the job posting or provided upon request. Additional compensation information such as benefits bonuses and commissions will be provided as required by law. We do not discriminate or retaliate against employees or applicants for inquiring about discussing or disclosing their pay or the pay of another employee or applicant as protected under applicable law. Pay ranges are available upon request.

Background Screening Statement

Employment offers are contingent upon the successful completion of a background screening which may include employment verification education verification criminal history check and other job-related inquiries as permitted by law. All screenings are conducted in accordance with applicable federal state and local laws and information collected will be kept confidential. If any adverse decision is made based on the results applicants will be notified and given an opportunity to respond.