Lead Data Scientist

Cazoo, is the ultimate destination for car enthusiasts and buyers alike! As a leader in the market, we pride ourselves on providing unparalleled search tools, expert car guides, insightful reviews, and a comprehensive vehicle price guide. Our mission is simple: to empower buyers to find their perfect car efficiently and with confidence, while also helping automotive retailers reach millions of eager buyers.

At Cazoo, you'll be part of a team that's revolutionising the way people buy and sell cars. If you're ready to drive your career forward in a dynamic, fast-paced environment, Cazoo is the place for you. Join us and be a part of shaping the future of automotive retail!

We are looking for Lead Data Scientist

Reports To: Director of Data

Contract Type: Permanent

Location: Richmond UK, Hybrid

The Role

Reporting into the Director for Data, this is Cazoo’s inaugural Data Science role: a senior, hands-on individual contributor who will establish Data Science as a discipline, set its standards and deliver its first production models, with the opportunity to grow the team over time.

This is not a research role. You will work alongside Data Engineering & ML Ops to productionise models, using our evolving Databricks platform, and partner with Analytics and BI to ensure outputs drive commercial decisions.

You will own the data-science roadmap, prioritising opportunities such as dealer churn propensity, Customer Lifetime Value, vehicle pricing, stock recommendations, buying propensity and Next Best Action, alongside Marketing Attribution and Marketing Mix Modelling.

As the function grows, you'll help hire, develop and mentor Data Scientists, beginning with a planned mid-level hire.

If you'd rather ship a well-understood model today than a perfect one next year, and are as comfortable explaining a propensity score to an Account Manager as you are tuning it, you'll feel right at home.

Establish Data Science at Cazoo

• Define the Data Science operating model, from identifying and sizing opportunities through to model development, deployment, monitoring and measuring business value.

• Set technical standards for code quality, reproducibility, model governance and explainability across the wider data function.

• Work with Data Leadership to own and prioritise the data-science roadmap, aligned to Cazoo’s commercial goals and focused on measurable value.

• Shape ML tooling on Databricks alongside Data Engineering & ML Ops, including feature pipelines, experiment tracking, deployment and monitoring.

Prove the value, every time

• Frame every model around a measurable hypothesis, using holdouts, uplift and control groups to demonstrate commercial impact for Cazoo and its dealers.

• Contribute to business-wide quarterly OKR planning, ensuring Data Science initiatives have clear hypotheses, measurement frameworks and expected value.

• Balance rigour with practicality, choosing the simplest reliable model that delivers measurable results.

Be the Data Science partner the business needs

• Keep dealers at the centre, building data products that help them sell stock faster, improve pricing and generate higher-quality leads.

• Partner with Commercial, Account Management, Finance, Product and Marketing to turn model outputs into actionable business decisions.

• Work closely with the Analytics CoE to inform model development and embed outputs into dealer reviews and commercial playbooks.

• Mentor Analysts in statistical and machine-learning methods, raising Data Science capability across the business.

• Represent Data Science at sprint playbacks and Leadership Team reviews.

Our Values

Everything we do at Cazoo is shaped by three values that guide how we work and collaborate.

Fearless We challenge the status quo, take initiative and learn through action rather than waiting for permission.

Dynamic We adapt quickly, make smart decisions and keep moving, even when the path isn't fully mapped out.

Better Together We share knowledge, build strong relationships and hold ourselves and each other accountable.

What we're ideally looking for

Essential

• Demonstrable experience as a Data Scientist, including time at Senior or Lead level, in a commercial, B2B, marketplace or e-commerce environment, with models taken from idea to production and measurable business impact.

• Hands-on experience in at least two of: churn/retention propensity, Customer Lifetime Value, pricing optimisation, demand forecasting, lead scoring or recommendation systems.

• Strong Python for machine learning (scikit-learn, XGBoost/LightGBM, pandas and statistical libraries), with clean, tested and version-controlled code.

• Advanced SQL and experience with large-scale cloud data platforms such as Databricks or BigQuery.

• Experience productionising ML models, including feature pipelines, experiment tracking, deployment, monitoring and retraining, working alongside Data or ML Engineers.

• Understanding of model explainability and governance, including SHAP or equivalent, documented assumptions and model limitations.

• Strong statistical and experimental skills, including A/B testing, holdouts, uplift measurement and causal inference.

• Proven ability to turn models into commercial decisions, with measurable business outcomes.

• Strong stakeholder management, able to prioritise opportunities, challenge constructively and communicate complex methods clearly.

• A self-starter comfortable working in an evolving environment without fully established processes or platforms.

Highly Desirable

• Automotive, used-car, classifieds or dealer-network experience, including B2B marketplace dynamics.

• Databricks and dbt experience, including Spark for large-scale feature engineering.

• Experience delivering explainable models through a CRM such as Salesforce.

• Marketplace pricing, dynamic pricing or price-index development.

• Exposure to LLMs and generative AI, with an understanding of where they add genuine value.

• Experience mentoring or managing Data Scientists, or establishing a Data Science function.

• Power BI or equivalent for surfacing model outputs to business users.
  

Perks & Benefits

Here’s how we back you:

Financials 💰

• We more than match your commitment to your pension, so when you contribute 6% , we put in 9%, taking your total up to 15% of your base salary.

• Quarterly value-led awards with generous cash prizes.

• Referral Bonus: Recommend a colleague, get £2,000.

Work-Life 🏖️

• 25 days (plus bank holidays)

• Hybrid role, two days a week based in our Richmond office

• Family Enhanced leave after 6 months of service:

• Maternity/Pregnant Parent Leave: 20 weeks at 100% pay,.

• Paternity/Non-birth Parent Leave: 12 weeks at 100% pay.

• Volunteer Days: We offer 2 volunteer days a year so you can help out wherever matters to you.

Health & Peace of Mind 🏩

Comprehensive cover so you (and your favourite people) have the care you need.

• AXA Private Healthcare: High-le