Applied Scientist II

Job Description

About us

Coalition is the world’s first Active Insurance provider designed to help prevent digital risk before it strikes. Founded in 2017, Coalition combines comprehensive insurance coverage and innovative cybersecurity tools to help businesses manage and mitigate potential cyberattacks.

Opportunities to make an impact with bold thinking are real—and happening daily at Coalition.

About the role

We are hiring an Applied Scientist II to build and improve the machine learning and GenAI models that power our underwriting decisions. You will take ownership of high-impact modeling problems end-to-end. This includes framing and data exploration through model design, evaluation, deployment, and monitoring, directly influencing how we assess and price cyber risk.

You’ll work closely with underwriters, product managers, and engineers to design robust pipelines, experiment with state-of-the-art ML/GenAI techniques, and ship models that meaningfully move business metrics. Your work will turn complex insurance and security signals into reliable decisioning systems, helping Coalition write better business at scale while pushing the frontier of AI in underwriting.

Responsibilities

• Build and advance our most sensitive and business-critical ML and GenAI models that power underwriting decisions and risk selection.
• Drive and execute ML projects end-to-end: problem framing, data exploration, feature engineering, model design, prototyping, offline/online evaluation, deployment, and monitoring.
• Design and implement ML pipelines for data preprocessing, feature engineering, model training, hyperparameter tuning, and model evaluation, enabling rapid and reproducible experimentation.
• Apply state-of-the-art ML and GenAI workflows (e.g., gradient-boosted trees, deep learning, LLMs, prompt engineering, transfer learning) to improve underwriting accuracy, automation, and decision support.
• Own model quality and robustness by defining success metrics, running ablations and diagnostics, and iterating to outperform prior baselines.
• Survey and incorporate recent advances in ML/GenAI research into our core underwriting capabilities, balancing scientific rigor with practical constraints.
• Collaborate closely with underwriters, product, data, and engineering partners to clarify requirements, align on tradeoffs, and ensure models integrate cleanly into production workflows.
• Communicate methods and results clearly through documentation, presentations, and design reviews; share learnings and patterns that level up the broader team.
• Contribute to a culture of scientific and data excellence by bringing mature empathy, best practices, and lightweight processes to experimentation, code review, and model governance.

Skills and Qualifications

• Ph.D. or MS in a quantitative or computational field (e.g., Computer Science, Statistics, Applied Math, Electrical Engineering) or equivalent practical experience.
• 5+ years of full-time experience developing and deploying ML- and data-based solutions in production.
• Practical, hands-on experience with supervised and unsupervised learning methods, including model selection, regularization, and calibration.
• Expertise in statistical analysis methods, especially regression analysis, statistical inference, and forecasting / time-series methods.
• Strong proficiency in Python and core ML libraries (e.g., scikit-learn, XGBoost/LightGBM, PyTorch/TensorFlow) and SQL for working with large, messy datasets.
• Experience with experiment design and evaluation (e.g., A/B tests, offline metrics vs. online KPIs, guardrails) and with ensuring reproducible results.
• Comfortable and effective in ambiguous problem spaces; demonstrated ability to own and drive projects with minimal oversight and process.
• Exceptional written and oral communication skills, with the ability to explain complex modeling choices and tradeoffs to technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Minimum 1+ year of experience in insurance underwriting modeling (pricing, risk scoring, eligibility, or related applications).

Bonus Points

• Experience with modern GenAI techniques relevant to underwriting (e.g., using LLMs for document understanding, unstructured-to-structured extraction, or underwriter copilot workflows).
• Familiarity with model governance in regulated environments, including documentation, validation, monitoring, and change management.
• Experience with ML orchestration and MLOps tools (e.g., Airflow, Prefect, MLflow, SageMaker) for managing training, deployment, and monitoring at scale.
• Exposure to causal inference or uplift modeling for understanding the impact of underwriting or guideline changes.
• Experience working with cyber or P&C insurance data (exposures, limits, deductibles, claims, external risk signals).

Compensation

As a remote-first organization, our compensation reflects the cost of labor across several Canadian geographic markets.

In Alberta, British Columbia & Ontario the base salary for this position ranges from $115,300.00/year up to $144,100.00/year.

For all other locations, the base salary for this position ranges from $103,800.00/year up to $129,690.00/year.

Consistent with applicable laws, an employee’s pay within this range is based on a number of factors, which include but are not limited to relevant education, skills, job-related knowledge, qualifications, work experience, credentials, and/or geographic location. Your Recruiter can share more on the specific target salary range for your location during the interview process. Coalition, Inc. reserves the right to modify this range as needed.

Vacancy Status: This posting is for an existing vacancy.

Use of AI: We utilize AI-assisted tools to help us organize and review the high volume of applications we receive. However, our human recruiting team makes all final hiring decisions and interview selections, valuing personal connection over algorithms.

Application Updates: Consistent with our commitment to transparency, if you are interviewed for this role, we will provide a status update on your application within 45 days of your final interview.

Perks

• 100% medical, dental, and vision coverage
• Flexible PTO
• Annual home office stipend and WeWork access
• Mental & physical health wellness programs like Headspace, Lumino, and more!
• Competitive compensation and opportunity for advancement

Why Coalition?

Work at Coalition is centered on the joint mission to Protect the Unprotected. We have built a remote-first, highly inclusive culture that welcomes people from diverse backgrounds. We trust each other to take responsibility, share ownership of outcomes, and put in the work together to protect businesses from digital risk. Coalition’s exceptional growth stems from its ability to address real-world problems for organizations of all sizes while remaining true to our founding values of character, humility, responsibility, purpose, authenticity, and inclusion.

We’re always looking for collaborative, inquisitive individuals to join #OurCoalition.

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Privacy Notice

Coalition is committed to protecting your privacy and handling your personal information responsibly. We collect, use, and store personal information as necessary for the recruitment process and in compliance with applicable privacy laws and regulations in all regions where we operate. We want you to understand what personal information we collect, how we use it, and your rights regarding access, correction, and deletion of your data where applicable. Information submitted, collected, and processed as part of your application is subject to Coalition’s Privacy Policy. For further details, please review our full Privacy Policy or contact us with any questions regarding how your information is handled.

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Safe Hiring Notice

All legitimate communication from Coalition comes from @coalitioninc.com emails, and open roles are listed only on our Careers page. We never ask for payment, banking details, or personal identification before an offer is accepted through our secure systems. If you believe you’ve been a victim of fraudulent recruiting, follow guidance from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

Anti-Discrimination Notice

Coalition is proud to be an Equal Opportunity employer. Our policy is to provide equal employment opportunities to all individuals, without discrimination or harassment on the basis of any characteristic protected by applicable laws in each country where we operate. This commitment includes, but is not limited to, ensuring equal treatment in recruitment, selection, training, promotion, transfer, compensation, and all other aspects of employment. Coalition does not tolerate discrimination or harassment of any kind, and we are dedicated to fostering an inclusive and supportive workplace.

Accommodations

Coalition is committed to providing reasonable accommodations to qualified individuals with disabilities, including applicants and employees, in accordance with applicable laws and regulations in each country where we operate. Our policy is to support equal opportunity in the hiring process by considering qualified applicants regardless of disability or other protected characteristics, unless providing accommodation would impose an undue hardship or disproportionate burden. If you require accommodation to complete an application, interview, pre-employment testing, or participate in the selection process, please contact us at [email protected]. We also consider all qualified applicants, including those with criminal histories, in line with applicable laws and regulations in each jurisdiction.

To all recruitment agencies: Coalition does not accept unsolicited agency resumes. Do not forward resumes to our email alias, employees, or other physical or virtual organization locations. Coalition is not responsible for any fees related to unsolicited resumes.