AVP, Data Science & AI

Job Description:

Role Title: AVP, Data Science & AI (L11)

Company Overview: 

Synchrony (NYSE: SYF) is a leading consumer financing company that has been at the heart of American commerce and opportunity for nearly a century. Synchrony delivers credit and banking products that empower tens of millions of consumers to improve their financial lives and access what matters most. Leveraging innovative solutions that are shaping the future of retail commerce, Synchrony supports the growth and success of some of the nation’s most respected brands, alongside hundreds of thousands of small and midsize businesses, including health and wellness providers. Committed to excellence in service and culture, Synchrony is proud to be named as #3 as a Great Place to Work® in India and is honored to be ranked the #1 Best Company to Work For® in the U.S. by Fortune magazine and Great Place to Work®. For more information, visit www.synchrony.com.

Organizational Overview:

This role is part of enterprise-focused Data Science & AI team responsible for enabling and accelerating strategic AI bets across the organization. These bets focus on improving the efficiency of internal business processes and workflows, while strengthening foundational data and platform capabilities.

Role Summary/Purpose:

The AVP, Data Science & AI is a leadership role with people management responsibilities in the Data Science & AI team, part of Analytics in India , rolling up to Growth organisation. This role is responsible for enabling and evaluating strategic Generative AI and Agentic AI priorities across the organization and plays a critical leadership role in advancing foundational capability readiness.

The AVP will lead a team of data scientists and operate at the intersection of business strategy, AI solutions, data architecture and engineering, enterprise platforms, controls, and agile program execution. Key responsibilities include defining AI use-case requirements, evaluating feasibility and business value, and assessing readiness across data, platform, architecture, and control dimensions.

This role requires a blend of collaborative and transformational leadership, strong people management capabilities, and hands-on expertise in AI/ML prototyping, data evaluation, and capability assessment to help drive scalable, responsible, and impactful AI adoption across the organization.

Key Responsibilities:

Build

• Define prioritized AI use cases with clear business outcomes and measurable success metrics.

• Prototype GenAI solutions (workflow automation, RAG, MCP, agentic orchestration) and drive production-ready AI & ML solution designs and handoff.

Assess & Evaluate

• Lead end-to-end readiness assessments (architecture/semantic layer, platform/tooling, governance/controls, operational integration).

• Build and run an AI evaluation harness (golden datasets, automated metrics for quality/groundedness, safety, latency, cost) with benchmarking, regression tests, and release gates.

Data & Architecture

• Support technical, data, and integration requirements; guide scalable AI data architecture patterns

• Consult on semantic layer design, metadata strategy, and data integration/lineage standards.

Stakeholder/Cross functional Management

• Coordinate cross-functional delivery across business, enterprise AI program, engineering, data, and platform teams; align dependencies and milestones.

• Drive agile governance and executive reporting (backlog/Jira-Kanban hygiene, status/risk management, roadmap and leadership updates).

Required Skills & Knowledge:

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, AI/Data Science, Engineering, Economics or such related fields with 6+ years of handson experience in delivering ML & AI solutions or 8+ years of relevant experience in lieu of a degree.

• Handson experience in delivering GenAI solutions involving workflow automations (Copilot/n8n/Zapier/Make), RAG, MCP, Agentic AI Orchestration (using Langchain/LangGraph/CrewAI/AutoGen/AWS Strands)

• Experience building and operationalizing agentic AI in AWS (AgentCore/Bedrock), Azure (OpenAI Service), or GCP (Vertex AI) including secure tool/data access, guardrails, and monitoring/evaluation.

• Experience using tools such as SQL, SAS/Python, Spark/Scala/Hive, with demonstrated ability to apply Machine Learning techniques and efficiently work with complex, large-scale datasets.

• Strong expertise in semantic layers, enterprise data architecture, and data engineering, with proven proficiency in tools and frameworks such as Apache Spark, Airflow, Kafka, dbt, and Scala.

• 3+ years of team and project management experience leading cross-functional teams and initiatives, partnering with business and technology stakeholders, and synthesizing outcomes into executive-ready insights and recommendations.

Desired Skills & Knowledge:

• Experience in the US banking, financial services, and credit card industry.

• Proven ability to operate effectively in highly matrixed organizations, with strong familiarity with Agile delivery practices and tools (Jira, Kanban, backlog management, sprint planning, and delivery tracking).

• Good working knowledge on graph database like Neo4j

• Innovative and agile mindset: Stay current on agentic AI and LLMOps, and operate effectively in fast iteration cycles given the 2-week "breakthrough cycle" of the current AI market.

Eligibility Criteria:

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, AI/Data Science, Engineering, Economics or such related fields with 6+ years of handson experience in delivering ML & AI solutions or 8+ years of relevant experience in lieu of a degree.

Work Timings:

This role qualifies for Enhanced Flexibility offered in Synchrony India and will require the incumbent to be available between 06:00 AM Eastern Time – 11:30 AM Eastern Time (timings are anchored to US Eastern hours and will adjust twice a year locally). This window is for meetings with India and US teams. The remaining hours will be flexible for the employee to choose. Exceptions may apply periodically due to business needs) We are proud to offer flexibility at Synchrony. Our way of working allows you the option to work from home or workspaces in our Regional Engagement Hubs—Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Pune, Kolkata, or Delhi/NCR. Occasionally you may be required to commute or travel to Hyderabad or one of the Regional Engagement Hubs for in-person engagement activities such as business or team meetings, training, and culture events.

For Internal Applicants:

• Understand the criteria or mandatory skills required for the role, before applying

• Inform your manager and HRM before applying for any role on Workday

• Ensure that your professional profile is updated (fields such as education, prior experience, other skills) and it is mandatory to upload your updated resume (Word or PDF format)

• Must not be any corrective action plan (Formal/Final Formal)

• L9+ Employees who have completed 18 months in the organization and 12 months in current role and level are only eligible.

• Level 9+ Employees can apply.

Grade/Level: 11

Job Family Group: