Director, Data Science

​Heidrick & Struggles (Nasdaq: HSII) is the world’s foremost advisor on executive leadership, driving superior client performance through premier human capital leadership advisory services. For more than 70 years, we’ve delivered value for our clients by leveraging unrivaled expertise to help organizations discover and enable outstanding leaders and teams. Learn more at www.heidrick.com

Job Description:

Who We Are:

Heidrick & Struggles (Nasdaq: HSII) is a premier provider of global leadership advisory and on-demand talent solutions, serving the senior-level talent and consulting needs of the world's top organizations. In our role as trusted leadership advisors, we partner with our clients to develop future-ready leaders and organizations, bringing together our services and offerings in executive search, diversity and inclusion, leadership assessment and development, organization and team acceleration, culture shaping and on-demand, independent talent solutions. Heidrick & Struggles pioneered the profession of executive search more than 70 years ago. Today, the firm provides integrated talent and human capital solutions to help our clients change the world, one leadership team at a time.®  

Additional information on the firm can be found at www.heidrick.com. 

The Role:

Heidrick & Struggles is building the future of talent advisory through data science and AI. As Director Data Scientist within HLabs (our internal R&D group), you'll be a hands-on technical leader who explores the frontier of innovation & translates ideas into production systems to transform how we serve clients.

This is a builder's role. You’ll spend most of your time in the code architecting, building, and deploying elegant solutions across traditional AI/ML models, cutting-edge LLM agents, and generative AI applications. As a technical leader, you'll set the vision for AI/ML projects while partnering across IT, Product, Engineering, and HLabs teams. Your expertise will guide project direction, elevate team members through hands-on mentorship, and bridge the gap between ambitious business objectives and successful technical execution.

If you thrive on building new capabilities to solve challenging problems, working across the full stack from experimentation to production, and seeing your work drive real business outcomes, this role is for you.

Responsibilities:

• Lead the development of data-driven tools and capabilities that create efficiencies and new revenue streams across the Heidrick business lines.
• Serve as an AI/ML Technical leader and mentor to staff data scientists through code reviews, technical guidance, and knowledge sharing
• Build production AI/ML systems that create measurable business value through operational efficiencies, enhanced capabilities, or new revenue streams
• Lead end-to-end development of generative AI solutions, agents, and LLM-based applications, from prototype to scaled deployment
• Drive technical innovation by identifying where emerging technologies (LLMs, RAG systems, agentic workflows, etc.) can unlock new possibilities for the business
• Partner with business leaders to translate strategic needs into technical solutions, balancing ambition with pragmatism
• Communicate impact by making complex technical work accessible to non-technical stakeholders

Required Qualifications:

• 8+ years of hands-on experience in data science, AI, and machine learning with a strong track record of shipping production systems that drove measurable business impact
• Deep expertise in Python and modern ML/AI tooling (Sagemaker, PyTorch/TensorFlow, HuggingFace, LangChain, etc.)
• Demonstrated experience building LLM-based applications across generative AI tools, agents, RAG systems, or other applied LLM solutions
• Experience leading technical projects and mentoring others within data science/analytics
• Proven track record of designing, building and managing production data/AI systems
• Advanced degree in a quantitative field (statistics, computer science, data science, etc.) or equivalent practical experience
• Strong collaboration skills: You can work directly with business partners, understand their needs, and deliver solutions they will actually use
• SQL and data platform experience (Snowflake strongly preferred) with the ability to work across the data stack
• Experience using Git/Github to manage, version and deploy projects

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience applying ML/AI within social sciences, talent analytics, or people-focused domains
• Track record of rapid prototyping and iteration in ambiguous problem spaces
• Experience with MLOps, model deployment, and monitoring in production environments

Pay Range Guidelines for this Position:

The salary range for this position is 145000 USD to 180000 USD. Compensation is based on several factors including but not limited to education, work experience and skills. In addition to your salary, Heidrick & Struggles offers discretionary bonuses (subject to eligibility requirements) and a comprehensive benefits package including: medical, dental, vision, disability leave, parental leave, paid time off and 401k contribution (all benefits are subject to eligibility requirements). Note: we have a location based compensation structure; there may be a different range for candidates in other locations.

Heidrick & Struggles is an equal opportunity employer committed to hiring qualified protected veterans and individuals with disabilities. All qualified applicants will be considered for employment without regard to race, color, religion, creed, age, sex, national origin, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, disability, marital status, veteran or military status, or citizenship status.