About the role
HCL Technologies Malaysia SDN BHD is seeking a motivated and talented Senior Data Scientist to join our team in Kuala Lumpur. This full-time position offers the opportunity to work on cutting-edge projects and collaborate with a dynamic team of professionals.
What you'll be doing
As part of IT Innovation projects, you will join the AI Factory/Innovation team as a Senior Data Scientist with a dual strategic role: technology watch and AI model development.
Mission 1 – Technology watch and feasibility: You will be the technical reference for new AI/ML approaches (LLMs, new architectures, emerging techniques). You will assess the technical feasibility of business use cases, benchmark market solutions (vendors, open-source), and deliver quick POCs (2–3 days) to validate hypotheses before major investment.
Mission 2 – AI model development: You will design and develop ML/DL models for selected use cases, from algorithm selection to final optimisation. You will build rapid prototypes (POCs in 2–4 weeks) and support a junior Data Scientist in developing their skills.
As a vibe coding expert, you use generative AI tools (GitHub Copilot, Cursor, Claude, ChatGPT) to accelerate data exploration, model prototyping, analysis code generation and documentation, while maintaining a critical mindset regarding the results.
You will work in an agile mode, closely with the Products & Innovation business teams, AI developers, architects and other Data Scientists.
Targeted profile : Senior Data Scientist with banking/finance experience, expert in ML/DL and proficient in vibe coding, able to quickly assess the technical feasibility of AI use cases, develop POCs, and stay at the forefront of technological advances.
Technology watch and feasibility:
- Weekly technology watch on AI advances (papers, new approaches, tools)
- Rapid technical feasibility assessments of business use cases (2–3 days max)
- Benchmark of market solutions (vendors vs open-source) with decision matrix
- Quick POCs to validate hypotheses before major investment
- Clear and actionable technical recommendations for decision-makers
- Participation in business workshops to understand needs
AI model development:
- Design and development of ML/DL models for priority use cases
- Justified choice of algorithms and technical approaches (baseline, state-of-the-art)
- Feature engineering and model optimisation (performance, robustness)
- Rapid prototyping using vibe coding (POC in 2–4 weeks)
- Rigorous validation of models (metrics, robustness, bias)
- Comprehensive technical documentation (notebooks, methodology, results)
- Collaboration with AI developers for industrialisation
Mentoring and knowledge sharing:
- Support to the junior Data Scientist (pair programming, code reviews)
- Knowledge transfer on advanced techniques and best practices
- Sharing of technology watch findings with the team (tech talks, documentation)
- Contribution to the library of prompts and vibe coding techniques
- Facilitation of technical workshops and feedback sessions
What we're looking for
- Bachelor's or Master degree in information technology or equivalent
- At least 7 years of experience in Data Science / Machine Learning
- Proven experience in the banking/finance sector (understanding of business challenges)
- Demonstrated experience in vibe coding with productive use of AI tools for rapid prototyping
- Expertise in ML/DL: supervised learning, unsupervised learning, deep learning, NLP, time series
- Proficiency in Python frameworks: scikit-learn, TensorFlow, PyTorch, XGBoost, LightGBM
- In-depth knowledge of LLMs and modern techniques (fine-tuning, RAG, prompt engineering, agents)
- Expertise in feature engineering and variable selection
- Strong skills in exploratory data analysis and statistics
- Experience in model evaluation and optimisation (hyperparameter tuning, cross-validation)
- · Knowledge of Cloud ML platforms (AWS SageMaker, Azure ML, GCP Vertex AI)
- · Proficiency in SQL and handling large-scale datasets
- · Knowledge of version control tools (Git) and notebooks (Jupyter, Databricks)
- · Nice to have: Experience in Computer Vision, Reinforcement Learning or Graph ML
Soft Skills:
- Intellectual curiosity and active technology watch
- Strong synthesis and recommendation skills (translating technical complexity into actionable insights)
- Critical mindset towards model results and AI-generated code Pragmatism: ability to quickly assess the ROI of a technical approach
- Scientific rigour in experimentation and validation
- Excellent communication, both technical and business-oriented
- Ability to work in uncertainty and ambiguity
- Initiative and ability to make proposals
- Pedagogy and mentoring (support to the junior Data Scientist)
- Agile and adaptive mindset
Work Location: In person