Data Scientist

CanCap Group Inc. is part of privately-owned Canadian national financial services company with multiple verticals across automotive, consumer, and merchant lending portfolios. We manage the entire lifecycle of the finance receivable from credit adjudication through to contract administration, customer service, default management and post charge-off recoveries. We are a company of innovators, we learn from each other, respect each other and create together. When it comes to our customers, partners, and each other, we are always motivated by doing the “right thing”. We are always looking to find the best people and the right methods that allow us to meet this goal and look to the future for growth.

**What Your Day and Week Could Look Like**:
Reporting to the Head of Data Platform, the Data Scientist will be responsible to develop generative AI based machine learning models to solve various prescriptive, predictive and generative needs of the business teams.

**Key Responsibilities**:

- Design and implement Generative AI models (e.g., Transformers, VAEs, GANs, diffusion models) for tasks such as content generation, synthetic data creation, and human-AI collaboration.
- Lead experiments and model training pipelines using large-scale datasets (text, image, audio, or multimodal).
- Work closely with product, engineering, and research teams to integrate generative AI capabilities into production systems.
- Drive innovation through staying up-to-date with the latest research in machine learning and generative modeling.
- Communicate findings and recommendations to technical and non-technical stakeholders.
- Mentor junior data scientists and contribute to team knowledge sharing and code reviews.
- Evaluate emerging technologies and tools to continuously improve the AI models.

**What You Bring**:

- 5+ years of industry experience in Machine Learning model development.
- 7+ years of experience in data science or applied machine learning roles, with at least 2+ years working specifically on Generative AI or deep learning models.
- Strong programming skills in Python, with hands-on experience using PyTorch, TensorFlow, or JAX.
- Solid understanding of transformer architectures, language models (LLMs), or diffusion-based models.
- Experience with model fine-tuning, prompt engineering, transfer learning, and evaluation of generative models.
- Experience in developing models in databricks environment.
- Proficiency in working with cloud platforms (e.g., AWS, GCP, Azure) and ML tooling (e.g., Hugging Face, MLflow, Weights & Biases).
- Demonstrated ability to translate business problems into technical solutions and deliver results.
- Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills.

**Preferred Qualifications**:

- Master’s or Ph.D. in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Statistics, Mathematics, or a related quantitative field.
- Experience with multimodal AI (e.g., combining vision, text, and audio).
- Familiarity with RLHF, autoencoders, or Neural Radiance Fields (NeRFs).
- Publications or contributions in top-tier AI/ML conferences (e.g., NeurIPS, ICML, CVPR, ACL).
- Understanding of ethical and responsible AI principles in the context of generative models.
- Experience working in Agile and DevOps environments.
- Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills.

**Nice to Have**:

- Exposure to cloud native software development best practices.
- Experience working in a fast-paced startup environment.

**What You Can Expect From Us**:
Our Employee Experience is aimed at supporting and inspiring our talented team through:

- A passionate team dedicated to supporting and empowering others.
- An environment where creative, innovative thinking is encouraged.
- Health and Dental Benefits.

**Work Location & Remote Flexibility**:

- This role follows a hybrid model, requiring employees to work 50% in-office, with flexibility to work remotely or from the office on other days.
- The company has two office locations:

- Downtown Toronto (Church Street) - The tech team is primarily based here.
- Mississauga - Another office location, but less frequently used by the tech team.

CanCap is an equal opportunity employer and values diversity. We are committed to building and evolving a team reflecting a variety of backgrounds, perspectives, and skills. To be considered for employment, you will need to successfully pass a criminal background check and validate your work experience.

**Next Steps**: