Note: The job is a remote job and is open to candidates in USA. Five9 is a leading provider of cloud contact center software that uses cloud innovation to improve customer experience. The Vice President of Data Science will lead and grow the applied data science organization, directing its technical and operational strategy while contributing hands-on to AI product development. The role focuses on AI/ML research, experimentation, model evaluation and optimization, data curation, cross-functional collaboration, and organizational scaling.
Responsibilities
- **Technical Direction Setting:** As an expert in the leading edge of AI and data science, you will direct the team on the methodologies, practices, algorithms, experiments and processes they perform
- **Hands On:** You are expected to also be hands on, not just a manger, and be directly responsible for some amount of the technical work in addition to directing the team
- **Organizational Growth:** You will be tasked with growing the team, and ensuring we have the right talent to accomplish our goals
- **Collaborator and Spokesperson:** You will act as an internal and external spokesperson for data science, and collaborate with stakeholders across the company. Internally, you will be expected to meet with product managers, executives and estaff, and be able to converse effectively with them. You will also occasionally meet with customers to understand how Five9 products, and the data science behind them, impacts the customers. You are expected to participate in industry activities, including publication of blog posts and papers, along with participation in AI conferences
Skills
- 12+ years experience in data science or AI applied research, ideally at a best-in-class applied research organization
- Extensive hands-on experience with LLMs, agentic architectures, retrieval-augmented systems, transformers, and composite model pipelines
- Strong understanding of commercial and open-source model ecosystems (e.g., OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Meta, Mistral), including evaluation, benchmarking, and tradeoff analysis
- Proven ability to perform fine-tuning, supervised/unsupervised training, prompt engineering, prompt optimization, and model orchestration for real-world use cases
- Experience designing evaluation frameworks, experiment methodologies, and robust model comparison workflows
- Expertise in large-scale data collection, labeling, cleaning, and curation pipelines, preferably with conversational or unstructured text data
- Familiarity with tools and techniques for data quality assessment, dataset versioning, and data governance
- Strong proficiency in statistical analysis, A/B experimentation, causal inference, and performance measurement
- Demonstrated success turning data insights into product improvements that drive measurable business outcomes
- Ability to work with engineering teams using modern software practices (Python, data platforms, cloud-native environments, APIs, ML Ops tooling)
- Understanding of production ML systems, deployment patterns, monitoring, and safety/guardrail design
- Ability to collaborate effectively with product managers, engineering leaders, UX, and GTM teams to translate business needs into data science strategies
- Adept at explaining complex technical concepts to executives, customers, and non-technical stakeholders
- Exceptional written and verbal communication skills, including ability to publish thought leadership (papers, blog posts) and present at conferences
- Passion for mentoring senior and junior data scientists, fostering technical excellence, and building a culture of experimentation and rigorous thinking
- Experience engaging directly with customers to understand their needs, gather feedback, and translate insights into product or model improvements
- Ability to define the data science strategy for AI Agents and customer experience products, aligning with corporate priorities and market opportunities
- Comfortable being an active contributor—writing code, running experiments, reviewing research—while simultaneously guiding the team's overall direction
- Experience hiring, scaling, and structuring high-performing data science teams across multiple geographies
- Ability to build processes for experimentation, model evaluation, data quality management, and continuous delivery of data science innovation into product
- Skilled at influencing E-staff and senior leadership, defending technical decisions, shaping product strategy, and representing data science internally and externally
- Deep understanding of responsible AI principles, privacy considerations, and model safety, including evaluating risks when operating at enterprise scale
- Advanced degree in a quantitative or technical field, such as:
- Ph.D. in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Statistics, Applied Mathematics, Electrical Engineering, Computational Linguistics, or a related field
- Master's degree in one of the above fields with significant applied industry experience in AI/ML leadership roles
- Work Location: This role is fully remote for candidates who reside outside the 30 mile radius of one of our offices. For candidates who reside within a 30 mile radius of one of our offices, this role is Hybrid and would require 3 days a week (T, W, TH) in office
Benefits
- Fully remote for candidates who reside outside the 30 mile radius of one of our offices.
- Hybrid work requiring 3 days a week (Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday) in office for candidates who reside within a 30 mile radius of one of our offices.
- Annual performance bonus.
- Stock and/or other applicable incentive compensation plans.
- Health, dental, and vision coverage, beginning on the first day of employment.
- Five9 covers 100% of the employee portion of the health, dental and vision coverage and shares a high portion of the dependent cost.
- Short & Long-Term Disability.
- Basic Life Insurance.
- 401k saving plan with employer matching.
- Access to an innovative mental health support platform offering therapy, coaching and self-guided mindfulness exercises for all covered employees and their covered dependents.
- Generous employee stock purchase plan.
- Paid Time Off.
- Company paid holidays.
- Paid volunteer hours.
- 12 weeks paid parental leave.
Company Overview
Company H1B Sponsorship