Senior Data Science Manager

Join Udemy. Help define the future of learning.

Udemy is an AI-powered skills acceleration platform built to help people and teams grow. It’s personalized, practical, and focused on real-world impact.

Our mission is simple: to transform lives through learning. Your work helps people around the world build skills they can use, whether they’re picking up something new or leveling up to stay ahead.

Over 80 million learners and 17,000 businesses already learn with Udemy. If you’re excited by change, energized by learning, and ready to have a real impact, you’ll feel right at home.

Learn more about us on our company page.

Where we work

Udemy is a global company headquartered in San Francisco, with additional U.S. offices in Denver and Austin, and international hubs in Australia, India, Ireland, Mexico, and Türkiye. This is an in-office position, requiring three days a week in the office (Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday) and flexibility on Mondays and Fridays.

About your skills

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Continuous Learning and Growth: Being able to follow up on all the progress in the AI and ML field, translating them into strategic capabilities for you and your teams is critical for this role. Truly understanding what these algorithms are capable of and making sure you set your team for success.

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Leadership: You design and build an environment that balances outcomes and innovation, while keeping a collaborative yet competitive team culture. You lead with humility and clarity. You build an environment where individuals feel supported, heard, and proud of what they build together. You understand how to motivate and empower your team to do their best work.

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Data Driven: You rely on data driven processes to make sure what the team is building is delivering the intended value. Fueled by an iterative process of A/B experiments and learning, you provide a clear process that balances big bets and iterative improvements leading to measurable outcomes.

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Decision Making: You are able to gather and communicate effectively all data, cross functional partner inputs, company direction to facilitate effective brainstorming sessions, help the team to set direction and progress confidently.

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Effective Communication: You explain the complex domain of ML/AI Algorithms with intuitive and focused simplicity, while clearly communicating limitations and opportunities effectively.

About this role

As a Data Scientist manager in the Catalog Search team, you will be responsible for managing a team of data scientists building AI/ML driven algorithms for the discovery of learning experiences with a primary focus on search. You will drive the strategy for the team to explore new strategies to use LLMs, semantic embedding models as well as learning engagement analysis of users (behavioral data) and incorporate these to turn to highly personalized learning opportunities for learners.

What you’ll be doing

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Partner with product managers, data scientists, engineers and other stakeholders to build data products and set direction as well as drive the execution.

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Build and maintain a high performance team, by recruiting, hiring and planning career development of a team of data scientists/ML engineers

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Provide hands-on technical guidance and career mentorship for team members

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Maintain high-quality standards, effective communication processes, and best practices in engineering and data science

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Research or prototype solutions and contribute to the codebase as needed

What you’ll have

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8+ years of experience as a software engineer, researcher or data scientist

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3+ years of management experience of teams building data driven solutions.

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Appetite and relevant background for learning state-of-the-art AI based search solutions

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Strong communication skills both written and verbal

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Strong coding skills with SQL and 1+ programming language (e.g. Java, Python)

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Familiarity with agile practices (e.g., Scrum)

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Ability to communicate effectively with non-technical stakeholders.

Preferred but not required

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Hands on experience with Enterprise search systems (e.g. Elasticsearch, Solr).

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Experience with big data ecosystems such as Spark, Hadoop and Hive.

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Hands-on experience with training and fine-tuning semantic embeddings and/or LLMs.

application deadline 18 November 2025

Why work here?

You’ll grow here.
Learning is part of the job. You’ll get full access to Udemy courses, a monthly UDay to invest in yourself, and a budget to spend on whatever helps you improve. Many people are diving into AI lately, but what you focus on is up to you.

AI is real here.
We use it in the way we learn and the way we work. You’ll have the space and tools to experiment, apply, and get better at using AI in practical ways.

You’ll own your work.
We trust people to lead, make decisions, and follow through. You don’t need to wait for permission or layers of approval to have an impact.

You’ll build with others.
We collaborate openly and shape ideas together. Everyone has a voice, and good thinking is welcomed from any direction.

You’ll see your impact.
What you build helps people grow their skills, change their careers, or find a path forward. You’ve got the experience, why not use it to help others gain theirs?

Bring your curiosity. We’ll bring the platform and the support. Let’s LEARN together.

Our Benefits Start with U

Our benefits start with you and were built to provide you and your family with the protection and care you need, making it easy to access the right coverage when you need it most. Benefits vary by region, and we encourage applicants to review our Australia Benefits, India Benefits, Ireland Benefits, Mexico Benefits, Turkiye Benefits & US Benefits, pages to get an understanding of some of the benefits we offer. For details on region-specific benefits, please refer to the information provided during the hiring process.

Benefits outlined are provided as a general overview and may vary depending on the location, role, and employment classification. All benefits are subject to change at the discretion of the organization and in accordance with applicable laws and policies.

At Udemy, we value diversity and inclusion and consider qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, ancestry, age, genetic information, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital or family status, veteran status, medical condition, or disability. We understand that not everyone will match each of the qualifications. However, we also realize that everyone has unique experiences that can add value to our company. Even if you think your background might not perfectly align, we'd love to hear from you!

Information regarding data privacy is available within the Udemy Careers Privacy Notice.