Senior Data Scientist Smartly

A bit about Smartly, a Datacom company
We exist to make it simpler for Kiwi businesses to look after their people. We’re known as the simple way to sort your payroll for over 20,000 businesses. Our slick software combined with our awesome support team help businesses pay their people on time, accurately and in line with legislation. As a fast-growing FinTech expanding into adjacent markets, Smartly offers a fast paced, fun work environment with great opportunities for personal and professional development.
What we’re looking for
We’re looking for a Senior Data Scientist to help shape Smartly’s data-driven future. You’ll play a pivotal role in turning data into actionable insight, enabling better decisions across product, marketing, customer success, and finance.
This is a senior hands-on role for someone who can move comfortably between technical depth and business context. You’ll lead advanced analytical work, guide the use of AI and machine learning across the business, and mentor others to raise Smartly’s analytics capability. Working closely with cross-functional teams, you’ll lead the delivery of data products and insights that improve customer experience, operational efficiency, and revenue performance.
What does the job involve?
- Lead the design and delivery of advanced analytics projects, from exploratory analysis to predictive models that shape product and commercial strategy.
- Partner with Product and Marketing teams to identify opportunities for growth, efficiency, and improved customer outcomes using data-informed insights.
- Build and productionise models and analytical pipelines in collaboration with Data Engineering, ensuring reliability, governance, and scalability.
- Translate complex analysis into simple, actionable insights that influence decisions at senior levels across the organisation.
- Drive data literacy and best-practice analytics across Smartly, mentoring analysts and contributing to a culture of data-informed decision making.
- Contribute to Smartly’s AI and automation roadmap, helping to identify and deliver initiatives that bring measurable customer and business value.
- Champion data quality and governance, ensuring Smartly’s data remains accurate, trustworthy, and compliant with privacy and security standards.

**What we’re looking for**:
Technical and Analytical Expertise
- 7+ years’ experience in data science or advanced analytics roles, ideally within SaaS or technology environments.
- Strong proficiency in SQL, Python (or R), and experience with data visualisation tools such as Metabase, Power BI, Tableau, or Looker Studio.
- Deep knowledge of statistical and predictive modelling, including experimentation and machine learning.
- Hands-on experience building and maintaining analytical data pipelines, dashboards, and automation workflows.

Strategic and Commercial Acumen
- Proven ability to translate analytical outputs into commercial insights that drive business impact.
- Experience working with SaaS metrics and growth levers such as CAC, LTV, retention, and churn.
- Strong understanding of product analytics, experimentation, and customer behaviour modelling.

Leadership and Collaboration
- Excellent communication and storytelling skills confident presenting complex data findings in a clear, compelling way.
- Experience mentoring or coaching analysts or data scientists.
- Ability to work cross-functionally with stakeholders across product, engineering, marketing, finance, and leadership teams.
- Curious, pragmatic, and outcome-oriented comfortable balancing technical rigour with real-world impact.

What you’ll get
- Flexible working - opportunity to work from home and offices in Lower Hutt or Auckland CBD.
- Awesome company-wide culture - we love a massive morning tea, an epic work party, and the random rolling lunch. We are also passionate about our people and seeing them thrive.

If this sounds like you, please don’t hesitate to apply