AI Data Scientist

At USAA, our mission is to empower our members to achieve financial security through highly competitive products, exceptional service and trusted advice. We seek to be the #1 choice for the military community and their families. Embrace a fulfilling career at USAA, where our core values – honesty, integrity, loyalty and service – define how we treat each other and our members. Be part of what truly makes us special and impactful. We are proud to support active-duty military spouses. USAA roles may offer remote or hybrid flexibility for active-duty military spouses consistent with applicable policy and business needs.

About the Role

As an experienced AI Data Scientist in the Technology organization at USAA, you will work within our innovative Data Science team to tackle a broad and evolving spectrum of business targets to provide outstanding impacts for our membership. You'll leverage both structured and unstructured data through traditional pillars of operations research such as simulation, optimization, and machine-learning techniques, as well as cutting-edge technologies with generative AI and large language models. You’ll collaborate with other data scientists to improve USAA's tooling, expanding the company's library of internal packages and applications, and validate the results and stability of models before being pushed to production at scale. This team is the backbone of the next generation of AI modeling at USAA.

This position can be based in one of the following locations: San Antonio, TX, Plano, TX, or Phoenix, AZ. This role offers a flexible work environment that requires an individual to be in the office 4 days per week. Relocation assistance is not available for this position.

Responsibilities

• Gather, interpret, and manipulate structured and unstructured data to enable advanced analytical solutions for the business.
• Develop scalable, automated solutions using machine learning, simulation, and optimization to deliver business insights and business value.
• Select the appropriate modeling technique and/or technology with consideration to data limitations, application, and business needs.
• Develop and deploy models within the Model Development Control (MDC) and Model Risk Management (MRM) framework.
• Compose technical documents for knowledge persistence, risk management, and technical review audiences.
• Assess business needs to propose/recommend analytical and modeling projects to add business value.
• Participate in the prioritization of analytics and modeling problems/research efforts with business and analytics leaders.
• Contribute to the development of a robust library of reusable, production-quality algorithms and supporting code, to ensure model development and research efforts are transparent and based on the highest quality data.
• Translate business request(s) into specific analytical questions, execute on the analysis and/or modeling, and then communicate outcomes to non-technical business colleagues with focus on business action and recommendations.
• Work closely with Data Engineering, IT, the business, and other internal stakeholders to deploy production-ready analytical assets that are aligned with the customer's vision and specifications while being consistent with modeling best practices and model risk management standards.
• Maintain awareness of cutting-edge techniques.
• Actively seek opportunities and materials to learn new techniques, technologies, and methodologies.
• Ensure risks associated with business activities are effectively identified, measured, monitored, and controlled in accordance with risk and compliance policies and procedures.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in mathematics, Computer Science, Statistics, Science, Engineering, or quantitative field; OR 4 years of relevant education and/or experience; and
• 4+ years of experience in predictive analytics or data analysis OR Advanced Degree (e.g., Master's, PhD) in mathematics, computer science, statistics, science and engineering, AI, or other similar quantitative discipline and 2+ years of experience in predictive analytics or data analysis.
• 2+ years of experience in training and validating statistical, physical, machine learning, and other advanced analytics models.
• 2+ years of experience in Python for performing statistical analysis and/or building and scoring AI/ML models.
• Experience writing code that is easy to follow, well documented, and commented where necessary to explain logic (high code transparency).
• Experience in querying and preprocessing data from structured and/or unstructured databases using query languages such as SQL, HQL, NoSQL, etc.
• Experience in performing ad-hoc analytics using descriptive, diagnostic, and inferential statistics and understanding real-world constraints such as latency, cost, and reliability in AI solution designs.
• Experience with the concepts and technologies associated with classical supervised modeling for prediction such as linear/logistic regression, discriminant analysis, support vector machines, decision trees, forest models, etc.
• Experience with the concepts and technologies associated with unsupervised modeling such as k-means clustering, hierarchical/agglomerative clustering, neighbors algorithms, DBSCAN, etc.
• Experience communicating analytical and modeling results to non-technical business partners with emphasis on business recommendations and actionable applications of results.

Skills

• Experience in LLMs and agentic systems development with frameworks such as LangChain/LangGraph, AgentCore, VertexAI, MCP, or others, with proven experience including prompt engineering, tuning and post-training techniques, multi-agent systems, agent optimization and tool use, RAG and context optimization, and observability and monitoring.
• MLOps Integration experience in facilitating engineering implementation of production scaled AI solutions in partnership with dedicated AI Engineers in cloud environments such as AWS or GCP.
• Ability to assess regulatory implications and expectations of distinct modeling efforts across risk stripes, including experience in the documentation and statistical validation of models for risk management.
• Financial services, insurance, banking, or other highly regulated industry experience.
• Experience with cloud-native application development and modernization initiatives.
• Experience mentoring junior developers.
• US military experience through military service or as a military spouse/domestic partner.

Pay

The salary range for this position is $114,080 - $218,030. USAA does not provide visa sponsorship for this role.

Benefits

At USAA our employees enjoy best-in-class benefits to support their physical, financial, and emotional wellness. These benefits include:

• Comprehensive medical, dental and vision plans.
• 401(k) and pension plans.
• Life insurance.
• Parental benefits and adoption assistance.
• Paid time off program with paid holidays plus 16 paid volunteer hours.
• Various wellness programs.
• Career path planning and continuing education to assist employees with their professional goals.