Blend is a premier AI services provider, committed to co-creating meaningful impact for its clients through the power of data science, AI, technology, and people. With a mission to fuel bold visions, Blend tackles significant challenges by seamlessly aligning human expertise with artificial intelligence. The company is dedicated to unlocking value and fostering innovation for its clients by harnessing world-class people and data-driven strategy.

We believe that the power of people and AI can have a meaningful impact on your world, creating more fulfilling work and projects for our people and clients. For more information, visit www.blend360.com We are looking for a Senior/Lead Data Scientist with strong expertise in Media Targeting and Media Mix Optimization to design, enhance, and optimize marketing investment strategies using advanced statistical modeling, machine learning, and optimization techniques. The ideal candidate will have experience building scalable optimization solutions that help maximize marketing ROI and improve budget allocation across channels.

This role requires excellent Python programming skills, strong statistical foundations, and the ability to translate complex analytical findings into actionable business recommendations. Segmentation & Media Targeting Customer segmentation: K-Means, GMM, DBSCAN — understands the underlying mathematics, not just the API

Cluster validation: silhouette score, stability testing, business interpretability

Feature engineering on transaction data: multi-window RFM, spend trajectory, recency decay, time spine construction

SHAP explainability: interpreting feature importance and translating it into plain-English segment narratives

Competitive metrics: Spend Index (issuer) and Wallet Share (merchant) — calculation and correct interpretation, including network coverage limitations

Temporal disaggregation: Denton-Cholette or equivalent — distributing coarse budgets into monthly media plans

Media budget allocation logic: heuristic channel splits and MMO response curve integration

Data filtering: BIN/ICA logic for issuer data, merchant_parent_name for merchant data

Bayesian Modelling & Optimisation Bayesian regression: model specification from scratch (likelihood, priors, hierarchy) — not just library calls

PyMC and/or Stan: model building, MCMC sampling, convergence diagnostics (R-hat, ESS, divergences)

Hierarchical Bayesian modelling:



partial pooling, multi-level structures, handling sparse group data

Chained / multi-stage modelling: sequential model architectures with correct uncertainty propagation (Monte Carlo through the chain, not point estimates)

Constrained nonlinear optimisation: scipy.optimize, CVXPY — budget allocation, channel floors/ceilings, portfolio constraints

Multi-objective optimisation: Pareto frontier generation, weighted utility functions, conflicting objective handling

Causal attribution: geo experiment design and analysis, Difference-in-Differences, Synthetic Control, experiment-to-model calibration

Discontinuous / partial regression: piecewise regression, change-point detection (PELT, BOCPD, Bayesian), regression discontinuity design

Adstock and saturation transformations: geometric, Weibull, Hill function — parameter specification via priors, response curve extraction from posteriors

ArviZ for Bayesian diagnostics and posterior visualisation Qualifications Bachelor's or Master's degree in Statistics, Mathematics, Computer Science, Data Science, Economics, Operations Research, Engineering, or a related quantitative field. 5+ years of hands-on experience in Data Science, Marketing Analytics, Media/Audience Targeting, or Marketing Mix Optimization. Strong programming experience in Python, with solid SQL skills for data extraction and analysis at scale. Excellent grounding in regression modeling, applied statistics, machine learning, feature engineering, and model validation.

Experience working with large marketing, sales, or transaction-level datasets, including customer segmentation and audience targeting.

Experience developing optimization or decision-support models for budget allocation, scenario planning, or media mix decisions. Hands-on experience with LLM APIs (OpenAI, Anthropic/Claude) for building analytics-adjacent workflows — narrative generation, summarization, or automated insight write-ups. Prompt engineering for structured outputs (e.g., generating segment personas,



JSON-formatted summaries, or reproducible analysis narratives).

Experience integrating LLMs into data pipelines — e.g., calling APIs programmatically from Python, parsing/validating responses, handling structured vs. unstructured outputs. Familiarity with retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) concepts for grounding LLM outputs in internal data or documentation. Understanding of LLM evaluation basics — hallucination checks, output consistency, prompt versioning — enough to build reliable, production-secure Gen AI features rather than one-off demos.

Strong communication and stakeholder management skills, with the ability to translate technical findings into clear, actionable recommendations.

Technical

Skills — Must Have Python, SQL, Pandas, NumPy, scikit-learn

Statistical modeling and regression analysis

Marketing analytics and audience/media targeting

Marketing Mix Optimization (MMO) and budget optimization

Scenario planning and predictive modeling

Customer segmentation and clustering techniques

AI/LLM integration and evaluation for analytics and reporting workflows Additional Information Thrive & Grow with Us Competitive Salary: Your skills and contributions are highly valued here, and we make sure your salary reflects that, rewarding you fairly for the knowledge and experience you bring to the table.

Dynamic Career Growth: Our vibrant environment offers you the opportunity to grow rapidly, providing the right tools, mentorship, and experiences to fast-track your career.

Idea Tanks: Innovation lives here. Our "Idea Tanks" are your playground to pitch, experiment, and collaborate on ideas that can shape the future.

Growth Chats: Dive into our casual "Growth Chats" where you can learn from the best—whether it's over lunch or during a laid-back session with peers, it's the perfect space to grow your skills.

Snack Zone: Stay fuelled and inspired! In our Snack Zone, you'll find a variety of snacks to keep your energy high and ideas flowing.

Recognition & Rewards: We believe great work deserves to be recognized. Expect regular Hive-Fives, shoutouts, and the chance to see your ideas come to life as part of our reward program.

Fuel Your Growth Journey with Certifications: We're all about your growth groove! Level up your skills with our support as we cover the cost of your professional certifications.

📌 Senior / Lead Data Scientist – Media Targeting and Media Mix Optimization (Hyderabad)
🏢 Blend
📍 Hyderabad