Data Scientist

Data Scientist – 12 Month Contract (Detavast) - Utrecht Hybrid

Job Title: Data Scientist

Location: Utrecht, Netherlands (1 day onsite, 4 days remote)

Contract Length: 12 month contract with opportunity to become permanent

Start Date: February 2027

About the Role

I'm currently supporting a leading international financial services organisation in their search for a Medior to Senior Data Scientist to join a high-impact data and AI team in Utrecht.

This role is ideal for a Data Scientist who values a pragmatic, evidence-based approach to solving business problems. While the team works within a broader AI and GenAI landscape, they are specifically looking for someone who can objectively assess different methodologies and determine the most effective solution for each use case.

Rather than defaulting to Generative AI, you will use your expertise in data science, machine learning, search, retrieval and analytical modelling to identify the approach that delivers the best outcomes.

Key Responsibilities

• Develop and maintain high-quality Python code suitable for production environments.
• Design and execute experiments to evaluate competing analytical and machine learning approaches.
• Build evaluation frameworks to assess solution effectiveness, model performance and business impact.
• Analyse datasets and performance metrics to identify opportunities for optimisation and improvement.
• Determine when classical machine learning, statistical modelling, search techniques or AI-driven approaches are most appropriate for a given problem.
• Contribute to best practices around experimentation, validation, model evaluation and deployment readiness.
• Support initiatives across machine learning, search and AI use cases while maintaining a solution-first mindset.

Required Skills

Essential

• Commercial experience as a Data Scientist within a production environment.
• Strong Python development skills.
• Experience developing code that can be deployed and maintained in production systems.
• Solid understanding of machine learning fundamentals and traditional data science methodologies.
• Experience designing experiments and evaluation frameworks.
• Strong analytical skills with the ability to interpret metrics, datasets and model performance results.
• Experience comparing and selecting appropriate modelling approaches based on business requirements.
• Understanding of software engineering principles, including code quality, testing and maintainability.
• Experience working with cloud platforms such as Azure and AWS.
• Strong stakeholder management and communication skills.

Desirable

• Experience working with search, retrieval or ranking systems.
• Exposure to Generative AI, LLMs or RAG-based solutions.
• Knowledge of MLOps or model deployment workflows.
• Experience working within highly regulated environments such as financial services.
• Familiarity with modern AI evaluation and benchmarking techniques.

Why This Role?

This position offers the opportunity to join a forward-thinking data organisation where success is measured by selecting the right solution, not simply the newest technology. You'll work on challenging business problems, influence technical decision-making, and help shape how data science solutions are designed, evaluated and deployed at scale.

Please note: Candidates should be able to clearly demonstrate projects they have personally delivered, including their specific contributions, key decisions made, trade-offs considered, and lessons learned from the implementation.