Data Science Manager Jobs in Portland, OR (NOW HIRING)

When you join the team at Unum, you become part of an organization committed to helping you thrive.

Here, we work to provide the employee benefits and service solutions that enable employees at our client companies to thrive throughout life’s moments. And this starts with ensuring that every one of our team members enjoys opportunities to succeed both professionally and personally. To enable this, we provide:

• Award-winning culture
• Inclusion and diversity as a priority
• Performance Based Incentive Plans
• Competitive benefits package that includes: Health, Vision, Dental, Short & Long-Term Disability
• Generous PTO (including paid time to volunteer!)
• Up to 9.5% 401(k) employer contribution
• Mental health support
• Career advancement opportunities
• Student loan repayment options
• Tuition reimbursement
• Flexible work environments
• All the benefits listed above are subject to the terms of their individual Plans.

And that’s just the beginning... With 10,000 employees helping more than 39 million people worldwide, every role at Unum is meaningful and impacts the lives of our customers. Whether you’re directly supporting a growing family, or developing online tools to help navigate a difficult loss, customers are counting on the combined talents of our entire team. Help us help others, and join Team Unum today!

We’re looking for a Senior Data Scientist who can bridge the gap between our most important workforce and talent opportunities and what is possible with today’s AI, machine learning, and advanced analytics capabilities. This highly visible role sits at the intersection of applied AI, data science, scalable data products, and people analytics. You will partner with HRBPs, Talent, Operations, IT, Legal, and data leaders to identify high-value opportunities, design practical solutions, build working prototypes, and help move validated ideas into production. This is not a purely research-oriented data science role. We’re looking for someone who can translate ambiguous talent and workforce challenges into clear problem statements, build tangible AI-enabled solutions that stakeholders can see and test, and partner across teams to ensure those solutions are responsibly deployed, adopted, and measured. You’ll architect intelligent systems - not just models - using modern AI approaches such as LLMs, embeddings, RAG, agentic workflows, workflow automation, and predictive modeling. You’ll help shape the organization’s AI roadmap for workforce and talent analytics while ensuring solutions are practical, scalable, secure, ethical, and aligned to business value. This role is ideal for someone who thrives in ambiguity, moves quickly from concept to prototype, exercises strong judgment about what is worth building, and can influence senior stakeholders through insight, technical credibility, and delivered outcomes. Preferrable experience within HR/People Analytics domain.

• Bachelor’s degree in a quantitative field required; advanced degree preferred.
• Minimum of 6 years of relevant analytical or data science experience.
• Demonstrated depth in multiple core data science disciplines (e.g., ML/statistics, data engineering, automation).
• Advanced SQL and data modeling experience across complex data environments.
• Proven ability to independently manage multiple initiatives and provide direction to others.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills.
• Experience working in regulated or complex operational environments preferred.
• Demonstrated leadership capability and a track record of delivering high-impact analytical solutions.

• Hands-on experience with modern AI approaches (LLMs, embeddings, RAG, etc.) Vector databases (e.g., FAISS, Chroma) and RAG architectures
• GitHub (including GitHub Copilot)
• Web app frameworks (e.g., Streamlit, Dash, FastAPI) for building analytics products

• Lead the design, development, and deployment of advanced statistical, machine learning, and AI solutions - including LLM-powered applications to solve complex business, workforce, and organizational challenges.
• Translate ambiguous business and HR questions into well-defined analytical approaches, scalable data products, and decision-support tools.
• Design and oversee end-to-end data science workflows, including data extraction (e.g., enterprise data warehouses), validation, modeling, deployment, and performance monitoring.
• Integrate data from multiple internal and external sources to create modeling-ready datasets, reusable data assets, semantic layers, and metadata frameworks that enable scalable and self-service analytics.
• Develop and productionize predictive and prescriptive models to explain outcomes, forecast behavior, and identify risks and opportunities.
• Build and deploy advanced AI solutions using modern frameworks (e.g., LLMs, embeddings, RAG architectures), and lead experimentation and rapid prototyping to evaluate emerging capabilities.
• Embed analytics and AI solutions into business processes through automation, system integration, and near real-time data capabilities.
• Partner with HR Business Partners, talent leaders, executives, data engineering, and IT teams to deliver actionable insights and ensure alignment with architectural, security, and data quality standards.
• Provide technical leadership across data science initiatives, ensuring consistency with best practices, methodologies, and quality standards.
• Communicate complex analytical insights and AI concepts clearly to non-technical stakeholders, influencing strategic and operational decision-making.
• Mentor and coach junior team members, elevating team capabilities in AI, machine learning, and analytics best practices.
• Ensure adherence to responsible AI principles, including data privacy, bias mitigation, security, and ethical use of employee data.
• Stay current on emerging AI and analytics trends, proactively identifying opportunities to incorporate new technologies into enterprise use cases.

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Unum and Colonial Life are part of Unum Group, a Fortune 500 company and leading provider of employee benefits to companies worldwide. Headquartered in Chattanooga, TN, with international offices in Ireland, Poland and the UK, Unum also has significant operations in Portland, ME, and Baton Rouge, LA - plus over 35 US field offices. Colonial Life is headquartered in Columbia, SC, with over 40 field offices nationwide.
Unum is an equal opportunity employer, considering all qualified applicants and employees for hiring, placement, and advancement, without regard to a person's race, color, religion, national origin, age, genetic information, military status, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, disability, or protected veteran status.
The base salary range for applicants for this position is listed below. Unless actual salary is indicated above in the job description, actual pay will be based on skill, geographical location and experience.
$98,340.00-$201,900.00
Additionally, Unum offers a portfolio of benefits and rewards that are competitive and comprehensive including healthcare benefits (health, vision, dental), insurance benefits (short & long-term disability), performance-based incentive plans, paid time off, and a 401(k) retirement plan with an employer match up to 5% and an additional 4.5% contribution whether you contribute to the plan or not. All benefits are subject to the terms and conditions of individual Plans.

Unum