Senior Specialist - Data Science

Location: Detroit, MI

Ally and Your Career

Ally Financial only succeeds when its people do - and that’s more than some cliché people put on job postings. We love this stuff! We see our people as, well, people - with interests, families, friends, dreams, and causes that are all important to them. Our focus is on the health and safety of our teammates as well as work-life balance and diversity and inclusion. From generous benefits to a variety of employee resource groups, we strive to build paths that encourage employees to stretch themselves professionally. We want to help you grow, develop, and learn new things. You’re constantly evolving, so shouldn’t your opportunities be, too?

Work Schedule: Ally designates roles as (1) fully on-site, (2) hybrid, or (3) fully remote. Hybrid roles are generally expected to be in the office a certain number of days per week as indicated by your manager. Your hiring manager will discuss this role's specific work requirements with you during the hiring process. All work requirements are subject to change at any time based on leader discretion and/or business need.

The Opportunity

The Senior Specialist - Data Science is responsible for applying advanced data science, machine learning, and Generative AI techniques to solve complex business problems and enable AI-powered capabilities across the enterprise. This role will transform complex data into meaningful insights and develop, evaluate, and deploy analytical and AI solutions that support Ally Vision.

The ideal candidate combines strong expertise in data analysis, statistical methods, machine learning, and programming with experience applying Generative AI and large language models (LLMs) to real-world business problems. This individual will partner closely with business and technology stakeholders to identify opportunities, translate business needs into analytical solutions, and ensure models and AI applications are accurate, scalable, responsible, and effective.

The Work Itself

Data Science & Advanced Analytics: Analyze large and complex datasets using statistical, machine learning, and advanced analytical techniques to identify patterns, generate insights, and solve business problems.

Machine Learning Model Development: Design, develop, evaluate, and optimize machine learning models using appropriate statistical and ML methodologies, including feature engineering, model validation, performance testing, and ongoing monitoring.

Generative AI & LLM Solutions: Develop and evaluate Generative AI solutions using foundation models, including prompt engineering, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), embeddings, semantic search, and agentic AI techniques where appropriate.

Model Evaluation & Experimentation: Develop rigorous evaluation frameworks and experimentation approaches to measure model quality, accuracy, relevance, safety, and business impact. Evaluate alternative approaches and communicate technical trade-offs and recommendations.

Data Preparation & Feature Engineering: Acquire, cleanse, transform, and integrate structured and unstructured data from multiple sources to support analytical modeling and AI solutions.

Productionization & MLOps: Partner with engineering teams to deploy data science and AI solutions into production environments and support model lifecycle management, monitoring, reproducibility, performance optimization, and scalability.

Business Partnership: Collaborate with business and technology partners to define problems, identify appropriate data science approaches, translate analytical findings into actionable recommendations, and communicate complex concepts to technical and non-technical audiences.

Responsible AI & Governance: Apply appropriate controls and governance practices related to model risk, explainability, data privacy, security, bias, and responsible use of AI.

Technical Leadership: Mentor less-experienced data scientists, contribute to technical design and methodology decisions, and help establish reusable data science, machine learning, and AI best practices.

The Qualifications We’re Looking For

Minimum Qualifications

3+ years of relevant experience.

Bachelor's degree in Data Science, Computer Science, Statistics, Mathematics, Engineering, or equivalent.

Preferred Qualifications

• 3+ years of experience in data science, machine learning, advanced analytics, or a related quantitative field, with advanced programming skills in Python and common data science/ML libraries.
• Master's degree in relevant quantitative discipline.
• Experience with SQL and large, complex datasets, including preparing, transforming, and analyzing structured and unstructured data.
• Experience applying statistical analysis, predictive modeling, machine learning, feature engineering, experimentation, and model evaluation to solve complex business problems.
• Hands-on experience developing or evaluating Generative AI and LLM-based solutions, including RAG, embeddings, semantic search, prompt engineering, and/or agentic AI.
• Experience with data science and machine learning frameworks such as scikit-learn, PyTorch, or TensorFlow, as well as integrating internally hosted or third-party foundation models.
• Experience working within AWS, Azure, or GCP, with familiarity deploying analytical, machine learning, or AI solutions and applying MLOps/LLMOps practices such as monitoring, versioning, reproducibility, and observability.
• Knowledge of Responsible AI, model governance, data privacy, security, and appropriate handling of sensitive data and PII.
• Strong analytical, problem-solving, and communication skills, with the ability to translate complex analytical findings into meaningful business insights and provide technical guidance to other data scientists or analysts.

How We'll Have Your Back

Who We Are

Ally Financial is a customer-centric, leading digital financial services company with passionate customer service and innovative financial solutions. We are relentlessly focused on "Doing it Right" and being a trusted financial-services provider to our consumer, commercial, and corporate customers. For more information, visit www.ally.com.

Ally is an equal opportunity employer committed to diversity and inclusion in the workplace. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, race, color, sex, religion, national origin, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, pregnancy status, marital status, military or veteran status, genetic disposition or any other reason protected by law.

In accordance with the Americans with Disabilities Act, if after review of the position expectations, you believe that you may need a medical accommodation to fulfill the duties of this role, please email [email protected] with details of your accommodation request.

Base Pay Range

$85,000.00 - $150,000.00

An individual's position in the range is determined by the specific role, the scope and responsibilities of the role, work experience, education, certification(s), training, and additional qualifications. We review internal pay, the competitive market, and business environment prior to extending an offer.

Incentive Compensation

This position is eligible to participate in our annual incentive plan.

Additional Locations: Charlotte, NC