Principal Data Scientist – AI/NLP & Generative AI

About the role

As a Principal Data Scientist focusing on AI, NLP and Generative AI, you will provide technical and thought leadership across multiple data‑science teams at Elsevier. You will shape the design and delivery of advanced AI solutions for knowledge discovery, set technical standards, and ensure quality and governance.

Key responsibilities

• Define technical direction and architectural standards for AI/ML, NLP and generative‑AI solutions, including LLM‑powered workflows, retrieval‑augmented generation and recommendation systems.
• Guide integration of scientific metadata, ontologies and taxonomies into AI pipelines, promoting reusable patterns.
• Review code, architecture and technical decisions across teams, stepping in hands‑on for high‑priority work.
• Unify disparate approaches into shared libraries or frameworks to reduce duplication.
• Establish and maintain evaluation, monitoring and governance frameworks to ensure consistent quality and responsible AI practices.
• Mentor and coach data‑science teams, harmonise tooling and delivery practices, and represent the function in senior management forums.

Required profile

• Significant experience in data science, AI, machine learning, NLP or information retrieval at a senior or principal level.
• Proven ability to define technical standards, evaluation frameworks and governance processes across multiple teams.
• Strong communication and stakeholder‑management skills, with experience presenting to senior and non‑technical audiences.

Required skills

• Python programming and solid machine‑learning fundamentals.
• Expertise with large language models, fine‑tuning, prompt engineering and grounding strategies.
• Experience building retrieval‑based systems, RAG, semantic, vector or hybrid search.
• Familiarity with modern AI/ML frameworks and cloud platforms.
• Knowledge of AI governance, model risk assessment and responsible AI practices.