PH – Data Strategy Consultant

Working at Thinking Machines

Thinking Machines is a technology consultancy building AI & data platforms to solve high impact problems for our clients. Our vision is for Southeast Asia to become a global hub for data science. To do that, we create data cultures one organization at a time.

We’re a company made up of intellectually curious, civic-minded, forever-learning individuals. We believe that great data science products are built with care for people, and that the best way to drive inclusive innovation is to start with a diverse team.

Our field of work is incredibly dynamic, so we want to work with people who are committed to growing with us. We want to hire people who can demonstrate an ability to learn, then provide them with personalized coaching, growth opportunities, and a great working environment to get them to world-class.

Role Description

We are a technology consultancy seeking a full-time employee to join the Data Strategy team as a Data Strategy Consultant. A Data Strategy Consultant’s main job is to translate client needs into tailor-fit data strategies to ensure our data solutions translate into real impact at scale in an organization. We help clients navigate the complex landscape of big data and machine learning techniques to determine the best strategies to achieve their business objectives. We are a high-performance team with individuals coming from a wide variety of backgrounds such as management consulting, communication, sustainability, healthcare, and development work.

As a Data Strategy Consultant, you will be able to:

• Solve challenging client problems, with a focus on building big data and machine learning solutions: You will need to understand a client’s business priorities, identify critical data points and customize our data science offerings to their context. Examples of the type of work you would be doing include gathering and structuring client information and requirements, researching about a client’s industry and tech stack, coming up with and testing hypothesis with data and preparing proposals and presentations communicating our findings and recommendation. All this work supports Thinking Machines’ development teams, consisting of data engineers, machine learning researchers and business intelligence analysts (to name a few), as they turn a Data Strategy Consultant’s slides and proposals into full-fledged data solutions.
• Hone your people wrangling skills: Technology-related decisions are never made in isolation, as they affect both business and technical stakeholders as well as the broader community. You’ll sharpen your executive presence and stakeholder management skills by working with individuals with business and IT backgrounds and of varying levels of seniority.
• Gain exposure to a broad range of organization and industries: We work with senior leaders of multinational companies across Southeast Asia and beyond. We serve clients from both the development and private sector, with key industries such as telecommunications, financial services, healthcare and transportation. You’ll be in constant contact with potential and current clients, government agencies, international civic organizations, and fellow data firms in the tech sector. 
• Own internal product development and process improvement initiatives: The Data Strategy team leverages a wide variety of frameworks, templates, tools ad processes to match the fast pace of Thinking Machines’ growth. You will have many opportunities to pitch new service lines, shape decisions around internal processes and platforms and create guides and templates that will be used by both current and future Data Strategy Consultants and TM8s, working closely with the CEO and VP of Growth as well as other relevant members of the senior leadership team.

Requirements

Minimum qualifications

• 1-4 years of experience in a management consulting, strategy, product management, venture capital, business intelligence/analytics and related fields
• Experience in the sales and/or delivery process (e.g., business development, project management, account management)
• Problem solving and strategic thinking skills: Do you have a knack for finding structure in chaos? Do you stay calm when faced with all kinds of datasets, visualizations or straight up number mess? While we don’t expect you to build machine learning models or data pipelines, you’ll need to develop a conceptual understanding of data science as you’ll be working with internal teams to figure our the best solutions and recommendations for our clients.
• Business sense: Business knowledge is a key skill. You need strong understanding of different business models, processes and industries to effectively identify the value of AI and analytics in a client’s context and translate complex analyses into actionable business insights.
• External communication skills: Your main job will be to communicate Thinking Machines’ suite of products and services to a business-minded audience, so you’ll need solid spoken and written communication skills to translate the technicalities of data science to the language of the boardroom and back into specifications and project timelines. 
• Open communication skills: We’re a fast-moving team that relies on each other for ideas and double-checking. We appreciate tactfully opinionated people.
• Quick learning agility: If you are naturally curious and love to learn, this is an environment you will thrive in. You’re not expected to know everything, but we expect you to fill in the gaps quickly, with guidance from our leadership team. You’ll be part of a very talented team, make sure to learn something new everyday!
• Strong sense of initiative: There are many things to do from all sides! We want someone who is highly collaborative with an entrepreneurial, roll-up-you-sleeves attitude.

Preferred qualifications / nice-to-haves

• Have previous experience working with developers, analysts, software engineers, statisticians and other roles with a similarly technical background
• Have previous experience at a fast-growing tech startup
• Have domain experience in a non-data field (Are you an expert in Telecommunications? Airlines? E-commerce? Finance? We value having a wide range of career experiences)

Benefits and Perks

We offer the following compensation and benefits:

• Competitive salary — the compensation amount is positively correlated with the difficulty of the job, relevant experience, fit, and skill factors.

• Fully remote — due to the global pandemic, we have shifted to a fully remote company for the foreseeable future while we monitor the situation. We also provide our teammates with a company laptop, an internet subsidy, and a work-from-home equipment allowance.

• Individual professional development budget— an annual budget for conferences, training courses, books, and software is available to sharpen your skills and build new ones to help you grow in your role.

• Full health benefits — generous health insurance package upon hiring.
• Regular 1:1 meetings with the leadership team to discuss career and personal goals, job progress and any questions and concerns.