Note: The job is a remote job and is open to candidates in USA. Next League is seeking a Data Scientist to join the AI Strategy, Training and Transformation team. This role pairs rigorous applied data science with hands-on AI agent prototyping to deliver measurable outcomes for clients in sports and entertainment.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and deploy machine learning and statistical models that address client business challenges across revenue, marketing, and fan engagement
• Lead exploratory data analysis, feature engineering, and model selection across structured and unstructured client data
• Translate ambiguous business problems into well-scoped modeling initiatives with clear success metrics
• Build evaluation frameworks and monitor model performance, drift, and business impact over time
• Document modeling decisions, assumptions, and tradeoffs in a way that earns trust with both technical and non-technical stakeholders
• Prototype AI agents, copilots, and assistants using leading frameworks such as LangChain, LangGraph, OpenAI Agents SDK, and Claude
• Build retrieval-augmented (RAG) pipelines and tool-using agent workflows for internal and client use cases
• Develop evaluation rubrics for agent quality covering accuracy, latency, cost, and safety guardrails
• Partner with engineering to harden prototypes into production-ready solutions
• Stay current on the rapidly evolving model and tooling landscape, and bring practical recommendations back to the team
• Support AI Product Managers and consultants with quantitative analysis, modeling, and technical deep-dives
• Occasionally embed with client teams to lead data audits, modeling workshops, and technical architecture discussions
• Communicate complex modeling results to non-technical stakeholders with clarity and credibility
• Contribute to executive-ready deliverables including business cases, demos, and rollout plans
• Help shape Next League's internal data science and AI tooling stack
• Build repeatable patterns that scale modeling and agent work across the client portfolio, including notebooks, evaluation harnesses, prompt libraries, and modeling templates
• Contribute to responsible AI, model governance, privacy, and enterprise data handling standards

Skills

• 3 to 5 years of experience in data science, applied machine learning, or quantitative analytics roles
• Strong foundation in statistics, machine learning, and experimental design
• Proficiency in Python and SQL, with comfort in at least one major ML library (scikit-learn, PyTorch, TensorFlow, XGBoost, or similar)
• Demonstrated experience building and deploying models against real business problems with measurable outcomes
• Hands-on experience working with large language models and at least one agent or RAG framework
• Strong product instincts and the ability to ship pragmatic v1s under tight timelines
• Exceptional communication skills, with the ability to translate model outputs into business recommendations
• Comfort operating in ambiguity and shaping problems before solving them
• Knowledge of responsible AI practices, governance considerations, and enterprise data handling
• Sports, entertainment, league, media, or performance marketing experience strongly preferred
• Hands-on experience with leading AI platforms such as: Claude, ChatGPT / OpenAI APIs, Google Gemini / Vertex AI, Microsoft Copilot (M365 / Copilot Studio), AWS Bedrock, Azure AI Foundry
• Familiarity with agentic frameworks (LangChain, LangGraph, OpenAI Agents SDK, CrewAI)
• Experience with vector databases (Pinecone, Weaviate, pgvector) and embedding models
• Experience with cloud data platforms such as Snowflake, BigQuery, or Databricks
• Familiarity with marketing analytics, CRM data (Salesforce, HubSpot, Dynamics 365), ticketing systems, or fan engagement platforms
• Experience with automation tools such as n8n or Zapier
• Comfort with core system concepts: APIs, permissions, retrieval and search, event tracking
• Exposure to MLOps and model deployment workflows

Benefits

• A comprehensive total rewards package, including premium health coverage and retirement programs
• W2 option

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