Data Science Lead

Mayflower is a technology company building high-load products used by millions of people worldwide. We work with large-scale real-time systems and apply machine learning across recommendations, search, safety, content understanding and other core product areas.
We are looking for a Data Science Lead to lead our Data Science team and own both the effectiveness of the team and the technical standards and practices behind machine learning models developed across the company.

This is a leadership role combining people management, stakeholder partnership, technical ownership and hands-on contribution to key ML initiatives. You will be responsible for building a strong and accountable Data Science team, improving how we develop and validate models, and ensuring that ML solutions translate into measurable product impact.

You will work closely with Product, ML Backend team, Backend Engineering and MLOps teams, owning the Data Science side of the ML lifecycle — from problem formulation and experimentation to model validation, production rollout and continuous improvement.

Job Responsibilities

• Lead a high-performing Data Science team: hire and develop strong people, set clear expectations and ownership, provide regular feedback, manage performance and create an environment where Data Scientists can grow and work effectively.

• Build strong partnerships with Product: align priorities and expectations, keep Data Science closely connected to product context and ensure cross-functional dependencies are addressed early.

• Set clear priorities and ownership across the Data Science team, balancing short-term product delivery with longer-term technical investments and ensuring people understand how their work contributes to broader company goals.

• Own Data Science technical standards and quality: establish common practices for experimentation, model development, validation, offline evaluation, reproducibility and technical review, and maintain a high technical bar for modeling and experimental design.

• Define scalable Data Science practices across the ML lifecycle, from hypothesis and prototyping to production readiness, A/B testing, monitoring and iterative improvement, promoting reusable approaches and common evaluation frameworks.

• Work closely with ML Backend team to define how models should be integrated into product systems and to remove bottlenecks between Data Science experiments and production.

• Collaborate with MLOps and infrastructure teams on tooling, training infrastructure, experiment tracking, model registry, feature pipelines, monitoring and other platform capabilities required by Data Scientists.

• Help allocate Data Science resources across company priorities, ensuring the team stays focused on the most valuable problems and that trade-offs are visible and understood.

• Contribute directly to several key ML streams, including recommendation systems, personalization, search, trust & safety, content understanding and other product areas.

• Partner with Product team to translate ambiguous product problems into well-defined ML problems, choose appropriate success metrics and determine where ML can deliver meaningful impact.

• Maintain sufficient technical depth to challenge approaches, support complex decisions and go deep into data, models and experiments when needed, while keeping the primary focus on team effectiveness, technical leadership and cross-functional alignment.

You’ll thrive here if you have:

• 5+ years of hands-on experience in Data Science / Applied Machine Learning, including experience in a Senior or Lead role.

• Proven experience managing a Data Science team with direct responsibility for people development, performance management, team effectiveness and delivery.

• Experience building clear ownership, priorities and ways of working within a team.

• Strong stakeholder management skills and demonstrated ability to build effective partnerships with Product, Engineering, MLOps and other cross-functional teams.

• Strong practical knowledge of modern machine learning methods and the ability to choose appropriate approaches based on the problem rather than a particular technology.

• Strong Python and ML stack experience.

Conditions

We know that great talent deserves great conditions, so here's what you can expect when joining us:

• EU-based employment contract and a 3-year Cyprus work visa with full support for your relocation and visa processes, including assistance for your family.

• EU passport. Opportunity to obtain an EU passport after 4 years of residence

• Full relocation package: flights to Limassol for you and your family, a company-covered apartment for the first month, and full relocation support to make your move smooth and hassle-free.

• Provident fund (Cypus): a long-term savings plan co-funded by you and the Company together (available after probation) that grows throughout your time with us in Cyprus.

• Transparent performance reviews twice a year, with bonus opportunities and salary adjustments.

• Private medical insurance for you and your family

• Corporate mobile plan (unlimited in Cyprus with roaming included)

• Mindfulness & well-being support, including psychological assistance with 50% coverage.

• 50% coverage of school and kindergarten fees for your children.

• Fully covered sports benefits, and also access to in-house electric scooters and bike rentals

• Professional growth support: language courses, conferences, training programs, and coaching.

• Peer recognition program: receive and share kudos for great work.

• A fully equipped office in Limassol’s city center, with everything you need for deep work and collaboration.

• Free breakfasts and lunches in the office and an in-house coffee bar with high-quality drinks and a health bar stocked with nutritious snacks.

• A strong engineering culture: international teams, corporate events, team buildings, and hackathons — because great work happens in great communities.