Junior Data Scientist

Company Description

Sika is a specialty chemicals company with a globally leading position in the development and production of systems and products for bonding, sealing, damping, reinforcing, and protection in the building sector and automotive industry. Sika has subsidiaries in 103 countries around the world and, in over 400 factories, produces innovative technologies for customers worldwide. In doing so, it plays a crucial role in enabling the transformation of the construction and vehicle industries toward greater environmental compatibility. With more than 33,000 employees, the company generated sales of CHF 11.2 billion in 2023.

Job Description

Sika Data Science is a young and growing division of Sika UK. Having begun as an arm of the UK R&D department, it has rapidly developed into a team that works on a much larger and more diverse scale: ranging from using traditional data science techniques to optimise the efficiency of operations and monitoring product quality and consistency, to harnessing the power of state-of-the-art AI solutions to identify novel construction materials and service Sika global with LLM technologies. The objectives of the team have evolved equally rapidly: we now aim to use data science to improve the productivity and sustainability of every Sika department. 

Purpose of the Role

The data science needs of departments around the UK have grown; for instance, R&D now depends completely on formulation templates and databases created, managed, and updated by the data science team. Moreover, Data Science UK has been called upon by corporate to fulfil larger data science functions, contributing significantly to the global digitalisation strategy. Now we are aiming to develop our team, with this particular role focusing on providing data-powered solutions for departments across Sika UK.

The Opportunity:  

• You will manage the data needs and improve key information accessibility for the R&D and QC departments, harmonising data communication between the teams.
• You will support the production departments in the optimisation of production processes and data collection and evaluation.
• You will support the sustainability and sales departments in the construction of ETL pipelines for various tasks, including the analysis of requisite customer and sales data.

The Rewards:

You will be rewarded with a competitive salary, and a sweep of great benefits. We pride ourselves on our total reward package:

• Bonus Scheme
• Holiday 25 days rising to 28 days with service, plus bank holidays
• Hybrid Working
• Core Hours Working
• A company pension contribution of up to 10%
• Private healthcare for you, with option to add family
• Group life cover at 6 × your annual salary
• Global Income Protection (PHI)
• Enhanced maternity and paternity pay
• Staff discount platform & Cycle to Work scheme
• Dedicated Service Awards for reaching key milestones
• Selected discounted Sika products

The Support:

As this role requires a deep knowledge of Sika UK’s operational working processes across various departments, you will be trained in these processes with full support from our existing team, along with potential shadowing of other departments. We are a small team who prioritise satisfaction and excellence in our work, and we will do our utmost to ensure that you are content in your role, accommodating for your needs. We aim to foster an honest and democratic culture, where all voices are equally important, and everyone is treated with respect.

The Skills:

This role requires a significant commitment to professional and personal development from day one. This role requires a significant commitment to professional and personal development from day one. You must be hungry to learn and eager to expand both your technical and interpersonal skillsets, focusing on the nuances of platform-specific functionalities and managing team-specific approaches. You’ll need a keen nose for where data science can be harnessed to drive productivity, both in the small and large scales, and where new sources of information can be harnessed and centralised. To these ends, your affinity for organisation and structure needs to be unmatched, and we’ll require that your attention to detail is scrupulous.  

The Future: 

Potential Career Routes: Senior Data Scientist, Machine Learning Engineer, Data Science Manager

The opportunity to progress within a global company across a variety of business areas.

Qualifications

• Highly flexible approach to communication, able to perceptively understand and deftly adapt to the different approaches of different teams.
• Scrupulous attention to detail and precise, meticulous approach to data organisation.
• Excellent knowledge of Excel, and a good understanding of SQL and NoSQL databases.
• Skilled in Python data packages (NumPy, Pandas, Polars) and constrained optimisation packages (convex and non-convex).
• Willing and able to learn numerous concepts across a wide spectrum of demands.
• Experience with data systems such as SCADA peripheries and SAP is valuable.