Principal Data Scientist

Paysafe is a leading payments platform with an extensive track record of serving merchants and consumers in the global entertainment sectors. Its core purpose is to enable businesses and consumers to connect and transact seamlessly through industry-leading capabilities in payment processing, digital wallet, and online cash solutions. With 29 years of online payment experience, an annualized transactional volume of $152 billion in 2024, and approximately 3,300 employees located in 12+ countries, Paysafe connects businesses and consumers across 260 payment types in 48 currencies around the world. Delivered through an integrated platform, Paysafe solutions are geared toward mobile-initiated transactions, real-time analytics and the convergence between brick-and-mortar and online payments. Further information is available at www.paysafe.com. 

It starts here. Have a global impact on the world of payments.

Principal Data Scientist – Next Generation ML/ AI Models: This is not a traditional Data Science role.

We are looking for a highly technical Data Scientist with a strong academic background and deep expertise in modern AI and Machine Learning techniques.

You will focus on researching, prototyping, and productionising next-generation modelling approaches, helping us move beyond traditional feature engineering and tree-based models into modern ML/AI architectures in Payment space.

If you regularly read research papers, follow advances in AI, experiment with new modelling approaches, and enjoy turning cutting-edge research into production systems, this role is for you.

This is primarily an individual contributor role with significant technical ownership and freedom to innovate.

What Paysafe stands for:

• Being open and honest.
• Keeping focused.
• Operating with Courage.
• Pioneering the future.

Our values and culture are driven by Equality, Development, Social Responsibility and Wellbeing. If you want to find out more about life at Paysafe, check out our careers page here. 

How we work:

We follow a hybrid working model, spending an average of three days per week at our office location. The office is located in Gresham Street next to St Paul’s cathedral with easy access and transport links via St Paul’s, Bank, Cannon Street, City Thameslink, Liverpool Street, Farringdon, Mansion House.

What you will do:

• Research, design, and build next-generation predictive models.
• Evaluate and apply state-of-the-art AI techniques to real-world business problems.
• Develop production-ready solutions using modern machine learning architectures.
• Prototype and test novel modelling approaches.
• Partner closely with Engineering, Data, MLOps, and Product teams to deploy models at scale.
• Contribute to the long-term technical direction of AI and modelling capabilities across the organisation.
• Stay at the forefront of emerging AI research and identify opportunities to apply new techniques.

Areas of focus:

We are particularly interested in candidates with deep expertise in one or more of the following areas:

• Transformers and sequence modelling
• Representation learning and embeddings
• Graph Neural Networks
• Foundation models
• Deep learning for structured and behavioural data
• Anomaly detection and unsupervised learning

What we’re looking for:

Essential:

• PhD in Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Computer Science, Statistics, Mathematics, Physics, or a related quantitative discipline.
• Strong research experience, or equivalent advanced industry expertise.
• Deep understanding of modern ML/AI architectures and techniques.
• Strong hands-on coding skills in Python and modern machine learning frameworks.
• Experience taking advanced modelling concepts from research to production.
• Strong mathematical and statistical foundations.
• 5+ years of hands-on experience developing and deploying machine learning models in commercial or research environments.

Not required:

• Fraud experience
• Payments experience
• Financial services experience
• Domain-specific risk expertise

We believe exceptional scientists can learn a domain. The focus of this role is technical excellence and innovation in AI.

A snippet of what you’ll get in return:

• Make your day work for you with our flexible working hours.
• You decide what your holiday looks like with the option to buy or sell your holiday and carry over up to 5 days into the next year.
• Enjoy social events on our roof top terrace with views onto St Pauls Cathedral.
• Our fully equipped facilities include showers, hairdryers and straighteners and fresh towels.
• Start your day with a free breakfast, fresh fruit and snacks.
• Take a breather in our dedicated wellbeing room.
• Spend time with those important to you with our enhanced paid family policies.
• Test our products Skrill and Neteller. Upon joining we will award you £50 into each wallet.
• Enjoy our discounts on memberships via vitality including, gyms, leisure centres, yoga/Pilates across the country.
• Need a new Laptop or TV? We offer support purchasing Apple and LG products via Stormfront technology.
• Join our six employee-led equality communities and help foster a workplace that celebrates diversity and create opportunities to collaborate and learn.
• Give back to the community with four paid charity days.
• Kickstart your weekend early with our summer hours during the months of June, July and August with a 3pm finish every Friday.
• Let’s not forget, we also offer: Private health insurance (pre-existing conditions are included) & dental insurance, income protection, life assurance and more.

What to expect next:

1. Phone screen with Talent Acquisition.
2. Video interview with the Hiring Manager.
3. Technical interview with team member.
4. In-person interview with CDO and Talent Acquisition.

Equal Employment Opportunity

Paysafe is an equal opportunity employer. We value diversity and are committed to providing a work environment of mutual respect to everyone without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, age, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by applicable laws, regulations and ordinances.