Head of Data Science (AI)

Location: Boston, Chicago, London, São Paulo, or Warsaw; office-based role.

Salary: $226,000–$276,750 in Illinois or $236,000–$289,250 in Massachusetts per year, plus discretionary compensation.

Company

Bain & Company is a global consulting firm developing Growth AI Performance System, an agentic decisioning platform for commercial analytics.

What you will do

• Set and own statistical standards across all platform modules.
• Lead complex modelling involving Bayesian, hierarchical, time-series, causal, state-space, discrete-choice, and domain-specific methods.
• Implement tested and reproducible estimators in Python using probabilistic programming frameworks.
• Define inference, validation, uncertainty, data-quality, and model-reconciliation standards for production outputs.
• Lead modelling across marketing mix and media ROI, brand equity and consumer choice, pricing, promotional lift, ranging, and assortment.
• Hire, mentor, and develop Data Scientists while presenting methodology and recommendations to senior client stakeholders.

Requirements

• 10 or more years of applied statistical modelling experience; PhD, postdoctoral, internship, and consulting experience count toward this threshold.
• Research-grade depth in hierarchical and multilevel modelling, Bayesian inference, experimental and quasi-experimental methods, time-series and state-space methods, and discrete-choice or demand modelling.
• Ability to derive models from first principles and implement maintainable, tested, reproducible Python code with probabilistic programming frameworks.
• Fluency in convergence assessment, effective sample size, divergences, posterior predictive checks, cross-validation, prior sensitivity, and synthetic-data falsification tests.
• Understanding of identifiability, partial identification, parameter recovery, and when to reframe a client question instead of deploying an unsuitable model.
• Experience designing experiments and validation frameworks, including A/B tests, geo and holdout designs, out-of-sample checks, back-testing, sensitivity analysis, and calibrated predictive uncertainty.
• Ability to produce structured, versioned analytical artefacts, uncertainty schemas, evaluation harnesses, and deployment criteria.
• Familiarity with media, panel, point-of-sale, pricing, and promotional data and their limitations.
• Experience building production-grade models used by clients or products and presenting methodology to senior business and C-suite stakeholders.
• Active use of AI-assisted coding tools for derivation, prototyping, and hypothesis testing.
• PhD in statistics or an equivalent quantitative field with dissertation-level applied inference work is desired but not mandatory; completed or near completion, with completion within the last three years strongly preferred.

Nice to have

• Experience mentoring or managing Data Scientists or setting analytical direction for a small practice.
• Dissertation, publications, or teaching and review experience in applied Bayesian inference, causal inference, econometrics, or marketing and pricing analytics.
• Production or consulting experience in marketing mix modelling, brand measurement, or pricing and promotional elasticity.

Culture & Benefits

• Permanent full-time position within a persistent product team combining startup-style ownership with Bain’s global scale.
• Annual discretionary performance bonus and potential additional discretionary compensation.
• 4.5% 401(k) company contribution, increasing after three years and fully vested upon start.
• Company-paid individual medical, dental, and vision premiums.
• Paid parental leave, sick leave, holidays, life insurance, and long-term disability insurance.