Senior Data Scientist I

Job

Title: Senior

Data Scientist I Location: UK,

Netherlands About the team: Elsevier’s mission is to help researchers, clinicians, and life sciences professionals advance discovery and improve health outcomes through trusted content, data, and analytics. As the landscape of science and healthcare evolves, we are pioneering intelligent discovery experiences — from Scopus AI and LeapSpace to ClinicalKey AI, PharmaPendium, and next-generation life sciences platforms. These products leverage retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), semantic search, and generative AI to make knowledge more discoverable, connected, and actionable across disciplines. The Search & AI Evaluation team sits within the Platform Data Science organization and is responsible for advancing enterprise-scale search, retrieval, and evaluation capabilities across Elsevier's global products. About the role We are looking for a Senior Data Scientist I to lead the development and evaluation of advanced search and generative AI systems. You will own complex problem areas end-to-end, drive methodological rigor in evaluation, and contribute to the technical direction of retrieval and RAG systems. This role is ideal for someone with deep hands-on experience in search/retrieval systems, RAG pipelines, and evaluation frameworks, who is ready to operate as a senior individual contributor with growing technical leadership responsibilities. Key responsibilities Search & Retrieval Development Play a leading role in the design and optimization of lexical, vector, and hybrid retrieval systems at scale. Help architect and improve RAG pipelines, including retrieval strategies, prompt design, and system orchestration (e.g., LangGraph-based workflows). Help drive experimentation with embeddings, re-ranking models, and retrieval architectures to significantly improve relevance and user outcomes. Partner with engineering to ensure robust, scalable, and production-ready implementations. Evaluation & Experimentation Help define and evolve evaluation strategies for search and generative AI systems across products.

Help design robust frameworks for: IR evaluation (e.g., NDCG, recall, ranking quality) GenAI evaluation (e.g., grounding, faithfulness, hallucination detection) Contribute to development of evaluation datasets, gold standards, and annotation strategies. Guide and review experimental design, including offline evaluation and A/B testing, ensuring statistical rigor and validity. Contribute to responsible AI practices, including bias, fairness, and risk evaluation Generative AI & Applied Research Apply and adapt state-of-the-art techniques in NLP, embeddings, and generative AI to production use cases. Evaluate and integrate emerging technologies into the team’s roadmap. Contribute to knowledge graph and semantic enrichment efforts that support retrieval systems. Domain & Research Integration Collaborate with domain experts, ontology engineers, and biomedical informaticians to integrate scientific taxonomies, citation networks, and clinical ontologies into retrieval systems. Incorporate structured data — including datasets, chemical entities, genes, drugs, clinical trials, and patient outcomes — into AI-powered discovery pipelines. Advance Elsevier’s knowledge graph and metadata integration strategy, linking research and health data for more context-aware retrieval. Apply cutting-edge research in information retrieval, NLP, embeddings, and generative AI to continuously evolve Elsevier’s discovery and evaluation stack. Collaboration & Delivery Work closely with product, engineering, and domain experts to define and deliver impactful solutions. Communicate findings and recommendations clearly to both technical and non-technical stakeholders. Take ownership of projects from problem definition through experimentation and deployment. Required qualifications Master’s or PhD in Computer Science, Data Science, Machine Learning, or a related field (or equivalent practical experience) ~3–5+ years of experience in data science, machine learning, or applied NLP Strong hands-on experience with: Search and retrieval systems (lexical, vector, hybrid) RAG pipelines and LLM-based systemsEvaluation methodologies for ML / IR / GenAI Advanced programming skills in Python Experience with modern ML/NLP frameworks (e.g., PyTorch, Hugging Face, LangChain, LangGraph, Haystack) Experience working with Databricks or similar distributed data/ML platforms Strong understanding of experimentation design and statistical analysis Preferred qualifications PhD in Computer Science, Data Science, Machine Learning, or a related field Experience working with large-scale datasets (scientific, biomedical, or enterprise data) Familiarity with scientific ontologies and metadata standards (e.g., MeSH, UMLS, ORCID, CrossRef) Exposure to production ML systems and MLOps practices Familiarity with data visualization and analytical tooling (e.g., Tableau, Power BI, matplotlib, seaborn, or similar) to communicate insights effectively Experience with human-in-the-loop evaluation or annotation workflows Publications or demonstrated applied research in IR, NLP, or generative AI Why join us? Join our team and contribute to a culture of innovation, collaboration, and excellence. If you are ready to advance your career and make a significant impact, we encourage you to apply. Work in a way that works for you We promote a healthy work/life balance across the organization. We offer an appealing working prospect for our people. With numerous wellbeing initiatives, shared parental leave, study assistance and sabbaticals, we will help you meet your immediate responsibilities and your long-term goals. Flexible working hours - flexing the times when you work in the day to help you fit everything in and work when you are the most productive. Working for you We know that your well-being and happiness are key to a long and successful career. These are some of the benefits we are delighted to offer: Dutch Share Purchase Plan Annual Profit Share Bonus Comprehensive Pension Plan Home, office or commuting allowance Generous vacation entitlement and option for sabbatical leave Maternity, Paternity, Adoption and Family Care leave Flexible working hours Personal Choice budget Variety of online training courses and career roadshows Wellbeing programs and gym facility in the office Internal communities and networks Various employee discounts Recruitment introduction reward Work from anywhere Employee Assistance Program (global) About the business As a global leader in information and analytics, we help researchers and healthcare professionals advance science and improve health outcomes for the benefit of society. Building on our publishing heritage, we combine quality information and vast data sets with analytics to support visionary science and research, health education, and interactive learning, as well as exceptional healthcare and clinical practice. At Elsevier, your work contributes to the world’s grand challenges and a more sustainable future. We harness innovative technologies to support science and healthcare to partner for a better world.

Primary Location Base Pay Range: NLD Amsterdam (Radarweg) €53,800 - €89,900. We know your well-being and happiness are key to a long and successful career. We are delighted to offer country specific benefits. Click here to access benefits specific to your location. We are committed to providing a fair and accessible hiring process. If you have a disability or other need that requires accommodation or adjustment, please let us know by completing our Applicant Request Support Form or please contact 1-855-833-5120. Criminals may pose as recruiters asking for money or personal information. We never request money or banking details from job applicants. Learn more about spotting and avoiding scams here. Please read our Candidate Privacy Policy.

We are an equal opportunity employer: qualified applicants are considered for and treated during employment without regard to race, color, creed, religion, sex, national origin, citizenship status, disability status, protected veteran status, age, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity, genetic information, or any other characteristic protected by law.

USA Job Seekers: EEO Know Your Rights. Elsevier is a global leader in advanced information and decision support for science and healthcare. We believe that by working together with the communities we serve, we can shape human progress to go further, happen faster, and benefit all. We support continuous discovery and uphold the highest standards of content integrity, reliability, and reproducibility so the communities we serve can advance their field of science, healthcare or innovation with confidence. By combining high-quality content with powerful analytics, we transform complexity into clarity and deliver mission-critical insights that help professionals make better decisions when it matters most. We deliver insights that help research institutions, governments, and funders achieve their goals. We help researchers discover and share knowledge, collaborate, and accelerate innovation. We help librarians provide verified, quality information to universities. We help innovators turn knowledge into new products. We help health professionals improve patient care and educators train the next generation of doctors and nurses. Connecting quality content and innovative technologies, we make progress go further and happen faster. And by championing inclusion and sustainability, we ensure progress benefits all. With 9,500 employees, over 2,300 technologists in 5 major tech hubs, and more than 60 locations across the globe, we are committed to supporting the scientific and healthcare communities around the world. We offer a diverse range of opportunities across technology, commercial, business, and early career jobs. If you are looking for a career that inspires progress in science, innovation and health, and allows you to grow every day, find your team at Elsevier. Elsevier is part of RELX Group. Let’s shape progress together. Join us. elsevier.com/about/careers