Senior Pricing Data Scientist (Retail Pricing)

About Marshmallow

We started Marshmallow when we found out how unfair insurance prices are for people who move to the UK. All because the industry hasn’t given this huge cohort of people a second’s thought, and isn’t set up to price them properly. 

We saw an opportunity to do things differently, so we made it our mission to back the ones who step outside the norm. Since we started, we’ve helped 100,000s of people get a fairer deal on their car insurance. Using technology, we serve people that are often overlooked by financial services companies, solving important problems for people who need it most. 

We know there are millions of marginalised customers out there. And we know that they face unique problems that most companies aren’t even aware of. We believe that our future is helping these people by learning about their experiences, and building our company around their needs. And there are strong signs that there’s a need for a company like us. Earlier this year we hit profitability, which is a huge milestone, but the most exciting thing is that we’re only just getting started.

How we work

We’re really proud of the culture we’ve created. We push for progress every day, because we know that we’ll only hit big milestones by taking lots of smaller steps. We’re always open to helping our team mates, sharing our ideas, experience and knowledge to solve problems together. We take risks, think creatively and experiment relentlessly to meet our customer’s needs, and never pass blame when things go wrong. We encourage people at all levels to take ownership of their work, and to be bold in challenging how we do things. Everyone has a voice and the opportunity to make an impact. 

And autonomy and ownership are only possible with clear direction. That’s why we collaborate to do in-depth planning twice a year, and make sure we leave with clear goals and objectives that flow from top to bottom. To make sure we’re as aligned as possible across functions, most of our work rolls up into four tribes; Acquisition, Retention, Claims and Pricing, Underwriting & Fraud. Each tribe has multiple teams embedded in it, working cross-functionally to do great work.

We’re so excited for all of the challenges up ahead, and we need more people to help us tackle them! If life at Marshmallow sounds like it could be for you, explore our culture handbook or read our blog to find out more.

Pricing at Marshmallow 🌟

This role sits within the Pricing Team, reporting to the Head of Retail Pricing. The team’s primary focus is on optimising broker profitability whilst hitting our ambitious growth targets. This means that the Pricing Team is integral to driving the business forwards. But you’ve probably read that all before! So what’s new?

We work in a very different way to most pricing teams that you might be familiar with. Everyone in Pricing has the potential to make a massive contribution to the business, so we all take ownership, move fast, innovate and deliver changes to our rates at high frequency.

A fantastic aspect of working at Marshmallow is that we have the backing of our senior leadership team to make decisions and take action autonomously. We’re the masters of our own destiny and we aren’t tied down with vast amounts of red tape! We analyse, implement, learn and iterate rate changes before most pricing teams have had their Shreddies. 🥣

You’ll also be excited to know that we don’t just churn out GLMs all day. We build & deploy exceptional in-house pricing data science models using the latest modelling techniques. You’ll work alongside other Pricing Data Scientists & Analysts pushing their innovative pricing projects; whilst also being able to work with the wider Data Science community on modelling customer behaviour, fraud & MLENG enhancements. We know first hand what a powerful combination this is!

We work alongside a bunch of amazing engineers who ensure we can implement our decisions quickly. We also have access to huge amounts of data. We don’t just mean your standard policy, claims and quote data. Our engineers spend their lives building APIs to third parties so that we know more about our customers than any of our competitors.

All of this means that you’ll have access to as much data as you can handle, the freedom to be creative, the backing of senior leaders to make decisions, and the ability to see your ideas implemented rapidly. And on top of all of that, we’re a pretty fun group to hang around with! 🎉

What you’ll be doing 📈

• Conduct price optimisation analysis and modelling using Python

• Develop a deep understanding of Marshmallow’s quote, policy, and market data, leveraging insights to drive improvements.

• Effectively communicate and gain buy-in for pricing initiatives from senior stakeholders, including heads of departments and directors.

• Build and deploy models via APIs for real-time pricing decisions.

• Collaborate with the wider pricing team to recommend, implement, and monitor pricing changes, ensuring continuous improvement.

• Identify and evaluate new external data sources to refine our market understanding and enhance pricing accuracy.

• Work closely with Engineering and ML Engineering teams to implement our pricing strategies efficiently.

• Engage with the wider data science community on long-term R&D projects that drive innovation in pricing.

Who are you? 💡

• Proactive: You drive growth by identifying & delivering new opportunities 

• Modeller: You use your DS expertise to build innovative best in class models

• Commercial: You directly use your models as tools to deliver timely real world impact

• Curious: You aren’t satisfied with ‘That’s just how it is’; you immediately investigate further

• Owner: You don’t just pull existing levers - you own end to end transformation in your area

• Opinionated: You generate your own opinions & pitch to others in an open & honest way

• Explainer: You can communicate complicated concepts in a simple way to non-experts

• Networker: You build and maintain strong relationships throughout the business

What skills are we looking for from you? 🤹

• Ability to interrogate data and conduct pricing analysis within SQL & Python

• Ability to build GBMs and other conversion/demand models within Python

• At least 3 years of data science experience in a commercial environment

• Insurance experience is desirable, but not required.

Perks of the job

• Hybrid working - Spend  3 days a week with your team in our collaborative London office

• Competitive bonus scheme - designed to reward and recognise high-performance

• Flexible benefits budget - £50 per month to spend on a Ben Mastercard meaning you get your own benefits budget to spend on things you want. Whether that’s subscriptions, night classes (puppy yoga, anyone?), the big shop or a forest of houseplants. Pretty much anything goes

• Sabbatical Leave - Get a 4-week fully paid sabbatical after being with us for 4 years

• Work From Anywhere - 4 weeks of work from anywhere to use, with no need to come to the office

• Mental wellbeing support – Access therapy and mental health sessions through Oliva

• Learning and development – Personal budgets for books and training courses to help you grow in your role. Plus 2 days a year - on us! - to further your skillset

• Private health care - Enjoy all the benefits Vitality has to offer, including reduced gym memberships and discounts on smartwatches

• Medical cash plan - To help you with the costs of dental, optical and physio (plus more!)

• Tech scheme - Get the latest tech for less

Plus all the rest; 33 days holiday, pension, cycle-to-work scheme, monthly team socials and company-wide socials every month!

Our Process 🤝

We break it up into 4 stages:

• Initial screening call with a member of the TA team

• An interview with the Head of Retail Pricing and another member of the pricing team. The purpose of this interview is to assess your background, experience, and technical expertise (90 minutes)

• A culture interview with a senior stakeholder to check that your work style fits our processes and values (1 hour)

We’ll let you know if you’re invited to an interview or not. But, as a small team with a lot of applications to consider, we can’t give personal feedback on each application.

Everyone belongs at Marshmallow

At Marshmallow, we want to hire people from all walks of life with the passion and skills needed to help us achieve our company mission. To do that, we're committed to hiring without judgement, prejudice or bias.

We encourage everyone to apply for our open roles. Gender identity, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, age or background does not affect how we process job applications.

We're working hard to build an inclusive culture that empowers our people to do their best work, have fun and feel that they belong.

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