Desk Data Scientist

Company Description

Vitol is a leader in the energy sector with a presence across the spectrum: from oil through to power, renewables and carbon.  From 40 offices worldwide, we seek to add value across the energy supply chain, including deploying our scale and market understanding to help facilitate the energy transition. To date, we have committed over $2 billion of capital to renewable projects, and are identifying and developing low-carbon opportunities around the world.

Learn more about us here.

Job Description

The Desk Data Scientist at Vitol has impact across the full workflow of data science: from working with business stakeholders to help define the project, to data collation and processing, exploratory analysis, model selection and tuning, and implementation of production models or custom visualizations. We extract value from data in many different ways, and experience exploring and extracting insights from data is just as important as the ability to build complex models. When driving business outcomes with data, a good visualization is often just as important as a small MAE. The data we work with is often complex and messy, and a successful Desk Data Scientist at Vitol is always willing to roll up their sleeves and delve into the data in order to achieve results.

The Desk Data Scientist will regularly engage directly with traders, brokers, analysts, and researchers across nearly all aspects of Vitol in order to understand the data that goes into internal models and the business problems that need to be solved, but the day-to-day collaboration will also be with the small and highly agile Data Science team. 

Responsibilities include:

• Being an energetic and enthusiastic member of a team uniquely positioned to bring the power of data to bear on the inner workings of the energy industry
• Ability to relate effortlessly with the commercial side of the business, continuously looking for new ways how AI/DS can create value for Vitol 
• Exploring new datasets, extracting insights, and visualizing the results
• Standardizing and structuring data in clear, extensible, easily understandable ways
• Applying machine learning models in novel ways to heterogeneous data sets to help optimize Vitol’s diverse businesses
• Helping review the code and experimental design of other Data Scientists to ensure a high level of production quality
• Building data expertise with domain experts in specific aspects of Vitol’s operations
• Aiding in the production-level implementation of the above models and custom visualizations to help drive business value

Qualifications

• Degree in a STEM subject with a solid understanding of coding best practices
• 3-5+ years in industry working as a data scientist with machine learning models applied to real-world data 
• Extensive experience presenting complex data visually to a wide audience (plotly, bokeh, etc.)
• Extensive experience exploring and extracting insights from heterogeneous multi-dimensional data sets
• Fluency in Python (3) with the ability to write clean, modular, well-documented code in a collaborative development setting
• Advanced coursework in math, statistics, and machine learning preferred
• Demonstrable attention to detail

Desired Experience

• Time series modelling (both machine-learning and econometric approaches)
• Application of a wide range of machine learning methodologies to real life applications 
• Enterprise software development (code design, code review, version control, etc.)
• Cloud-based data science workflows (esp. AWS) and understanding of AWS services
• Experience in building ETL pipelines in Python and on AWS is a strong plus
• Awareness of continuous integration and delivery concepts/technologies  

Personal Characteristics

• A self-motivated individual who thrives on seeing the results of their work make an impact in the business 
• Strong communication skills, both verbally and in writing – passionate about using data to help tell a story
• A keen sense for the art of the possible
• Proven ability to be flexible and work hard, both independently collaboratively
• Methodical and organized – in general, in experimental design, and in code!
• Attention to detail with strong analytical, mathematical, and problem-solving skills
• An interest in learning about the commodities space
• Resourceful and able to think creatively and adapt in a dynamic and energetic environment
• Team player, with an open non-political style and a high level of personal integrity
• Desire to be a thought-partner in a fast-growing team, and make an impact at a business that sits at the heart of the world’s energy flows

Additional Information

• Large diversity of projects with real-world impacts on a truly global scale
• Entrepreneurial environment within a flat hierarchy, where great ideas come to life quickly
• Close collaboration with various business units across our key regions (eg. Geneva, Houston, Singapore)
• A highly motivated DS team (currently largely London-based) comprised of experienced individuals with a supportive attitude and great team spirit
• Being part of the energy transition through increased emphasis on renewable & alternative energy sources at a pivotal moment in the industry
• Strong management commitment to incorporating data science into the future of Vitol’s operations