Manager, AI and Data Science

Workforce Classification

Telecommuter Join Our Team: Do Meaningful Work and Improve People’s Lives

Our purpose, to improve customers’ lives by making healthcare work better, is far from ordinary. And so are our employees. Working at Premera means you have the opportunity to drive real change by transforming healthcare.

Premera is committed to being a workplace where people feel empowered to grow, innovate, and lead with purpose. By investing in our employees and fostering a culture of collaboration and continuous development, we’re able to better serve our customers. It’s this commitment that has earned us recognition as one of the best companies to work for. Learn more about our recent awards and recognitions as a greatest workplace.

Learn how Premera supports our members, customers and the communities that we serve through our Healthsource blog: .

At Premera, we're leveraging artificial intelligence and data science to solve some of healthcare's most complex challenges and create meaningful impact for the people and communities we serve. As our Manager of AI and Data Science , you'll lead a talented team of data scientists and AI innovators developing cutting-edge solutions that improve decision-making, unlock new opportunities, and shape the future of healthcare.

We're looking for a visionary and technically strong leader who enjoys rolling up their sleeves, exploring new ideas, and turning emerging technologies into real-world results. You'll guide a high-performing team, influence strategy, collaborate across the organization, and help transform ambitious concepts into scalable AI-powered solutions that deliver measurable business value.

If you're energized by innovation, passionate about developing people, and excited to work at the intersection of AI, data science, and healthcare, we’d love to talk to you!

This is a telecommuter position, working from home.

What you’ll do

• Build and lead a high-performing team of data scientists, machine learning scientists, and experimental engineers, fostering a culture of innovation, rigorous experimentation, and continuous learning.
• Stay at the forefront and capitalize on advancements in AI by driving alignment with organizational goals.
• Leads cross-functional collaborations with business, analytical, and technical teams to ideate and develop innovative AI/ML models and actionable insights addressing complex healthcare challenges.
• Lead hands-on exploration, development, and iterative testing of advanced AI/ML models to drive strategic insights and innovative business solutions. Champion continuous experimentation, rapid prototyping, and data-driven validation while ensuring timely, high-quality results.
• Oversee continuous model performance monitoring to detect drift and ensure ongoing validity of AI/ML solutions. Guide re-training strategies and collaborate on timely issue resolution, maintaining scientific rigor and reliability.
• Collaborate with stakeholders to continuously evaluate the strategic impact and business value of AI/ML prototypes and production models, ensuring that data-driven insights translate into meaningful outcomes.
• Champion and reinforce rigorous experimentation and development best practices - including peer review, reproducible experimentation, and responsible AI principles such as fairness and explainability - to maintain high standards in all AI initiatives.
• Mentor and coach data scientists, machine learning scientists, and experimental engineers. Foster continuous learning, advanced skill development, and professional growth in alignment with emerging AI capabilities.
• Instill a culture of iterative experimentation and flexible, agile-like development practices, emphasizing robust documentation standards for reproducibility. Encourage continuous improvement through regular retrospectives and process enhancements that accelerate development.
• Establish and uphold comprehensive documentation practices for experimental design, model development, and data usage, ensuring reproducibility and compliance with all CD&A and corporate standards.
• Build strong partnerships with business leaders, fostering a deep understanding of the potential and outcomes of cutting-edge AI/ML advancements. Translate complex scientific concepts into clear, compelling narratives, ensuring stakeholders can make informed, data-driven decisions.

What you’ll bring

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science, Statistics, Mathematics, or a related quantitative field; or 5+ years of equivalent professional experience.
• 2+ years of experience leading highly analytical and scientific teams, guiding them through data science or machine learning.
• 5+ years of hands-on experience developing and validating AI/ML solutions in industries with a track record of effectively transitioning models from research to pilot or POC.
• 5+ years of experience conducting quantitative analytics.

Preferred Qualifications

• Advanced degree (Masters/PhD) in a quantitative, computational, or scientific field, with demonstrated expertise in AI/ML development methods.
• 2+ years managing cross-functional research collaborations or academic/industry partnerships with a strong focus on innovative AI/ML development.
• 5+ years expertise with core data science libraries (NumPy, Pandas, Matplotlib and scikit-learn) and familiarity with advanced model interpretability libraries (e.g., SHAP, LIME) and statistical tools (e.g., Statsmodels, PyMC3).
• Experience with NLP libraries (e.g., Hugging Face Transformers, SpaCy) or specialized packages (e.g., XGBoost, LightGBM).
• 5+ years of experience productionizing and monitoring AI models and solutions with MLOps frameworks (e.g., MLflow, Kubeflow) for experiment tracking, model packaging, and versioning. Experience applying drift detection and continuous evaluation strategies to maintain the scientific and business relevance of AI/ML solutions.
• 5+ years working within Agile-like test and learning en