Data Scientist

About Alaan

Alaan is the Middle East’s first AI-powered spend management platform, built to help businesses save time and money.

Our all-in-one solution combines smart corporate cards, real-time expense tracking, AI-powered automation, seamless accounting integrations, and deep financial insights- designed to simplify finance operations and maximize control over company spend.

Founded in 2022, Alaan is already the trusted partner of over 1,300 leading businesses across the UAE, including G42, Careem, McDonald’s, Tabby, Al Barari, Rove Hotels, Rivoli, and CarSwitch. Together, our customers have saved over AED 100 million with Alaan.

In just three years, Alaan has become the #1 expense management platform in the Middle East- and we’ve done it while becoming profitable.

Backed by Y Combinator and top global investors- including founders and executives of leading startups- Alaan is built by a world-class team from McKinsey, BCG, Goldman Sachs, Barclays, Zomato, Careem, Rippling, and other high-growth companies.

We’re not just building software. We’re reimagining how finance works for modern businesses across the region.

About The Role

At Alaan, we’re building the modern financial stack for businesses across MENA—empowering companies to manage cards, payments, and expenses with intelligence and automation. A key part of this vision is our ML-powered product features, which drive smarter decisions, faster processes, and better customer experiences.

We’re looking for a strategic, senior-level Data Scientist to own the entire lifecycle of our machine learning features - from concept to production - and to act as the bridge between data science, engineering, and product. This is not just a modeling role - you’ll be setting the vision, defining the strategy, and ensuring that every AI-driven feature in our product is impactful, robust, and continuously improving.

If you’re excited by the idea of taking a feature from 80% to 90%+ accuracy, love working cross-functionally, and want to lead high-impact AI initiatives in fintech, this is the role for you.

What You'll Do

• Define the Data Science Strategy: Translate product goals into clear, testable data science problems and technical requirements. Own the “what” and the “why” for ML initiatives.
• Oversee the Modeling Lifecycle: Lead the team through Proof-of-Concepts (POCs), benchmarking, and productionization. Provide expert feedback on model selection, feature engineering, and validation.
• Set Success Criteria: Define robust metrics, benchmarks, and offline/online evaluation methods to measure success across the lifecycle.
• Drive Iterative Improvement: Monitor in-production performance, run A/B tests, and formulate experiments to push accuracy, efficiency, and user impact to the next level.
• Ensure Technical Excellence: Act as the quality gatekeeper—ensuring models are well-architected, scalable, and production-ready before deployment.
• Lead Cross-Functional Delivery: Collaborate with Data Scientists, ML Engineers, Analysts, and Backend Engineers to ensure seamless execution and alignment with business goals.
  
  

What We Are Looking For

• 5+ years of experience in data science, with a proven record of delivering ML features to production.
• Deep ML expertise and strong grasp of the entire ML lifecycle - model design, training, validation, deployment, monitoring, and iteration.
• Strategic thinking ability to connect business needs to data science solutions, and prioritize based on impact.
• Leadership & mentorship experience of guiding teams, providing constructive technical feedback, and raising the quality bar.
• Communication ability to explain complex technical topics clearly to both technical and non-technical audiences.
• Lifecycle mastery and first-hand experience taking models from concept to production, troubleshooting failures, and leading improvements.
• Prior experience as a Tech Lead or Principal Data Scientist.
• Expertise in MLOps tools and best practices.
• Fintech domain experience.
  
  

What's in it for you

• Contribute to building the Middle East’s most beloved fintech brand from the ground up
• Benefit from a role with significant ownership and accountability
• Thrive in a flexible hybrid culture with ample work-life balance
• Participate in exciting offsite events
• Competitive salary and equity
• Enjoy additional perks like travel allowances, gym memberships, and more