Senior Data Scientist

Job Title: Senior Data Scientist (SF Skills Intelligence Foundation)

Work Location: Bangalore North – Devanahalli Innovation Campus

About the Role

As a machine learning engineer at SAP SuccessFactors, you will play a pivotal role in developing and deploying cutting-edge AI solutions. You will leverage your deep understanding of computer science fundamentals, including data structures, algorithms, and computer architecture, coupled with exceptional mathematical skills to tackle complex challenges.

What You'll Build and Do:

• Collaborate with data engineers to design and implement robust data and model pipelines.
• Manage the infrastructure and data pipelines necessary for production deployment.
• Possess an end-to-end understanding of applications, including the underlying machine learning algorithms.
• Develop algorithms based on statistical modeling and build/maintain scalable machine learning solutions in production.
• Utilize data modeling and evaluation strategies to identify patterns and predict outcomes.
• Apply a range of machine learning algorithms and libraries.
• Lead software engineering and design initiatives.
• Communicate complex technical concepts clearly to non-technical stakeholders.
• Liaise with stakeholders to analyze business problems, define requirements, and scope solutions.
• Analyze large, complex datasets to extract actionable insights and determine appropriate analytical techniques.
• Research and implement best practices to enhance existing machine learning infrastructure.
• Provide technical support to engineers and product managers in integrating machine learning capabilities into products.

What You'll Bring:

• Bachelor’s/Master’s degree in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Data Science, or related fields, with expertise in knowledge representation.
• 8+ years of experience in data science or data engineering, including at least 3 significant projects or 5 years of hands-on experience.
• Proven track record in developing and deploying NLP solutions using pre-trained models and Large Language Models (LLMs) such as BERT and GPT.
• Experience with core NLP tasks including text classification, Named Entity Recognition (NER), information retrieval, summarization, question answering, and text generation, applied to real-world business scenarios.
• Hands-on experience in fine-tuning pre-trained models on domain-specific data using techniques like parameter-efficient fine-tuning (PEFT/LoRA) and instruction tuning.
• Strong proficiency in hyperparameter optimization, dataset curation, data augmentation, and robust model evaluation (precision/recall, BLEU, ROUGE, bias, safety, and toxicity assessments).
• Ability to build and manage end-to-end machine learning pipelines, from data ingestion and labeling to model training and evaluation, using frameworks like PyTorch and Hugging Face Transformers, and experiment tracking tools (MLflow, Weights & Biases).
• Experience in productionizing and operating NLP services in batch and real-time environments, covering model packaging, API deployment, performance optimization, monitoring, drift detection, A/B testing, and continuous improvement loops.
• (Desired) Experience with knowledge graph stores (e.g., Stardog, TigerGraph, Ontotext GraphDB, Neo4j) and semantic technologies (OWL, RDF, SWRL, SPARQL, JSON-LD).
• Excellent problem-solving skills, strong business acumen, and outstanding oral and written communication abilities, effective with both technical and non-technical audiences.

About SAP SuccessFactors

SAP SuccessFactors is at the forefront of the Human Revolution, transforming workforces through advanced technology. We unlock human potential and enable intelligent enterprises by digitizing businesses. People are central to our mission, and we operate the world’s largest Human Capital Management (HCM) Cloud, serving over 120 million users. Our agile teams have end-to-end ownership of product development, release, and operations. We are looking for top talent to drive continuous innovation in the Skills Intelligence market.

Location Details: Bengaluru, Karnataka, India. This role is based at our Devanahalli Innovation Campus.

Additional Information: Work Area: Software-Design and Development; Expected Travel: 0 - 10%; Career Status: Professional; Employment Type: Regular Full Time; #LI-Hybrid