Senior Data Scientist

About the firm

Roark is an Atlanta-based private equity firm with over $41 billion in assets under management. Roark focuses on investments in consumer and business service companies, with a specialization in franchise and franchise-like business models. Roark prides itself on being a trusted partner for management and business owners, believing that successful partnerships begin with providing a compelling value proposition to all business constituencies.

Roark brands generate approximately $97 billion in annual system revenues from 117,000+ locations across 50 states and 120 countries. Our portfolio companies span multiple industries including food, restaurants, consumer and business services, health, wellness and fitness, and education and youth activities. Notable portfolio companies include Dunkin', Jimmy John's, Jamba, Orangetheory, Mathnasium, and Drybar.

Roark is growing our in-house Data and Analytics team to better leverage advanced analytics, data science, and machine learning for sound investment decisions and to guide our owned businesses to profitable growth.

About the role

We are seeking a Senior Data Scientist to ship production-grade models and tools across Roark investment use-cases and our brands. This is a hands-on, senior individual-contributor role for a generalist data scientist with strong MLOps and software-engineering depth. The role involves working across many topics and brands to build durable competitive advantage in underwriting investments and scaling portfolio performance.

This role partners closely with investment teams, our owned businesses, and Data & Software Engineering to deliver scalable, production-ready solutions that drive real business impact. The position is expected to be in-office to support collaboration and culture building.

Responsibilities

• Own machine learning models end-to-end — build, deploy, monitor, and maintain them in production, including forecasting, regression, and classification, beyond proof-of-concept.
• Translate ambiguous business problems into well-defined modeling approaches and data requirements, working in an 80/20 style without waiting for a perfect dataset.
• Write clean, tested, reusable Python; participate in code review; and apply strong software craft, including Git and packaging.
• Deploy and operate models on the cloud (Google Cloud Platform preferred — Vertex AI, BigQuery, Cloud Run), applying MLOps fundamentals: CI/CD for ML, reproducibility, deployment, and monitoring.
• Raise the engineering and modeling standards of those around you — teaching craft and lifting team quality, not only your own output.
• Partner directly with investment teams, owned-business stakeholders, and internal clients to deliver analysis and tools that drive decisions.
• Author reusable IP — internal libraries, templates, and standards documentation — that scales across Roark's businesses and target sectors.
• Get up to speed quickly on new projects and brands, adding value across a wide variety of tasks in an agile fashion.
• Ensure rigor in model validation, performance monitoring, and documentation, balancing sophistication with interpretability, speed, and impact.
• Stay current on advances in machine learning, AI, and applied analytics relevant to private equity and consumer businesses.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in a quantitative discipline (computer science, data science, engineering, mathematics, statistics, economics, or similar); Master's Degree preferred.
• 5–8 years of applied data science experience, operating with senior-level autonomy and requiring minimal coaching or guidance.
• Demonstrated breadth: has shipped a variety of models, including forecasting, regression, and classification, and is comfortable across core algorithm families.
• Has owned at least one model in production — deployed, monitored, and maintained (not proof-of-concept only).
• Strong software craft in Python: clean, tested, reusable code; Git; code review; and packaging.
• Cloud deployment experience (Google Cloud Platform preferred — Vertex AI, BigQuery, Cloud Run) and MLOps fundamentals you can teach others: CI/CD for ML, reproducibility, deployment, and monitoring.
• Evidence of having raised others' engineering standards, not only your own.
• Client- and stakeholder-facing delivery experience, either through consulting engagements or as cross-functional business support.
• Currently authorized to work in the United States without the need for visa sponsorship now or in the future; role is based in Atlanta, GA.

Skills

• Regression and classification across a range of business problems.
• Pricing and promotion analytics.
• Marketing Analytics.
• Customer and unit economics modeling.
• Experiment design and measurement.
• Forecasting and demand prediction, including unit-level forecasting.
• Python and SQL.
• Cloud platforms, Google Cloud Platform preferred (Vertex AI, BigQuery, Cloud Run).
• MLOps tooling: CI/CD for ML, reproducibility, deployment, and monitoring.
• Generative AI coding productivity tools (Claude Code, Cursor, etc.).

Nice to have

• Generative AI / agentic development experience — Mastra, LangGraph, RAG, and LLM applications.
• Domain adjacency: QSR, multi-unit consumer, retail, CPG, or franchise businesses; unit-level forecasting.
• Orchestration and pipeline experience: Airflow, dbt, Dataflow.
• Has authored reusable IP — internal libraries, templates, or standards documentation.

Personal and leadership characteristics

• High standards of integrity, accountability, character, and professionalism.
• A self-sufficient developer who delivers on-time analysis and code.
• Raises the craft of those around them rather than only their own output.
• Hands-on, pragmatic, and results-oriented, with a bias for action and a willingness to roll up sleeves to get the job done.
• Comfortable working across a wide variety of tasks; gets up to speed on a new project quickly and adds value in an agile fashion.
• Works in an 80/20 style — does not need the perfect dataset to get started, and balances speed and impact with technical rigor.
• Thrives in a fast-paced, high-demand environment with multiple competing priorities; self-starter with a sense of urgency to deliver under tight deadlines.
• Low-ego team player who enjoys collaborating with high-intellect colleagues and stakeholders across various functions and backgrounds.
• Effective interpersonal and communication skills, with a demonstrated ability to collaborate with partners across different functions, backgrounds, and levels of seniority.
• Quick learner, high curiosity; strong problem-solving and conceptual skills.
• Entrepreneurial, agile mindset; someone who wants to take part in building a world-class analytics organization.

Benefits

• Base salary plus annual performance bonus.
• Medical, dental, vision, life insurance, and long-term disability insurance.
• 401k with employer match.
• Paid time off and holidays.
• Breakfast, lunch, snacks, and drinks provided daily in the office.