Data Science Manager
Top Hat is transforming higher education by making learning more personal, engaging, and effective. We bring together interactive content, assessment, and analytics to spark better teaching and learning for a brighter world. As we continue to build our AI-first future, personalized learning experiences powered by cutting-edge data science, our Data team plays a pivotal role in shaping that vision.
The Opportunity
We are seeking a Manager, Data Science to lead a team of talented data scientists in developing evidence-driven insights, predictive models, and AI-powered personalization features that directly impact millions of students and thousands of professors.
You will be instrumental in
Delivering AI and analytics solutions that improve learning outcomes (e.g., withdrawal-rate reduction, mastery-based personalization, agentic AI).
Driving the next generation of personalization across our products (Ace Practice, Study Planner, Recommendations, etc.).
Building a strong partnership with Product Development, and Learning teams to ship data-driven features at scale.
Cultivating a culture of curiosity, rigor, and measurable impact within your team.
You will
Lead & Develop the Team: Coach, mentor, and grow a team of data scientists. Foster technical excellence and career development.
Advance AI-First Capabilities: Contribute to the design of agentic AI (using Google ADK, Vertex AI), adaptive mastery algorithms, and graph-based knowledge representations.
Deliver Impactful Models & Insights: Drive roadmap-aligned projects such as learning mastery diagnostics, recommender systems, and A/B experimentation.
Partner Cross-Functionally: Collaborate with Product, Engineering, Learning Materials, and Customer Success to translate educational goals into actionable AI solutions.
Ensure Quality & Reliability: Establish standards for experimentation, model governance, bias detection, and reproducibility.
Tell the Story with Data: Communicate complex technical concepts and evidence-of-impact to leadership and stakeholders.
You are
Leadership Experience: 2-4 years managing data scientists or ML engineers; 6-8 years in data science, ML, or applied statistics.
Technical Depth: Expertise in Python, SQL, ML frameworks (e.g., scikit-learn, TensorFlow, PyTorch), and modern cloud data platforms (BigQuery, Spark, etc.). Practical experience with LLM-based applications and agent frameworks (Google ADK, LangChain, etc.).
Applied ML/AI: Hands-on experience delivering personalization, recommender systems, or predictive analytics in production.
Business & Product Sense: Ability to translate ambiguous problems into measurable objectives and practical solutions.
Experimentation Skills: Strong grasp of causal inference, A/B testing, and evidence-based impact measurement.
Excellent Communication: Proven skill in presenting technical and non-technical stories to executives, educators, and cross-functional peers.
Passion for education technology and improving student outcomes.
Nice to Have
Experience with graph databases (e.g., Neo4j) and knowledge graph-driven personalization.
Background in education analytics, psychometrics, or learning science.
Why team members love working at Top Hat
A noble mission that creates meaningful, fulfilling work
A team that cares deeply for customers and for each other
Flexible, remote first work environment
Professional learning and development for all role levels
An awesome and welcoming Toronto HQ
Competitive health benefits that start on day one
A management team focused on performance, growth, engagement and connection
Our winning strategy and market potential
Innovative PTO policy with lots of time and space for self-care
Passionate customers that believe in us—and what we do
A chance to work with new tech like generative AI—and see the customer impact