About the role:
CloudZero is at the forefront of revolutionizing how cloud-driven companies manage and optimize their cloud spend. We empower organizations to make smarter decisions that drive growth and efficiency by bridging the gap between cloud costs and business outcomes. Now, we’re seeking an experienced Data Science & AI leader to oversee and drive the charge in AI for FinOps and cloud cost optimization, tackling one of the most complex challenges in modern tech: transforming cloud cost data into actionable business intelligence. This role is instrumental in driving the future of cloud optimization at CloudZero.

As the Head of Data Science & AI, you will oversee and lead the design, development, and deployment of AI/ML solutions that transform how cloud cost data informs business decisions.

• Be a Pioneer: Lead the development of AI solutions in FinOps and business optimization—an area critical to cloud-native organizations.

• Tackle Complex Problems: Address one of cloud businesses' hardest and most critical challenges, connecting their technology investments to revenue and other key business metrics.

• Shape the Future: Develop and drive Data Science disciplines, inclusive of ML and AI-driven innovations that redefine how organizations understand and act on their cloud costs.

• Build Impactful Technology: Collaborate with world-class teams to design solutions that enable businesses to operate more efficiently and strategically in the cloud.

• Build & Grow Data Science Experts: Set the foundation for a talented, high-performing, and motivated team of Data Scientists and AI experts; Building and coaching while embedding a culture of innovation, feedback and high engagement.

Responsibilities:

Data Science & AI Strategy:

• Set the long-term strategy and roadmap for Data Science and AI in alignment with company vision, customer landscape and product roadmap.

• Identify and prioritize high-impact opportunities to leverage data, ML, and AI across the business.

• Stay ahead of emerging technologies, tools, and trends to inform technical direction and innovation.

ML Model Development:

• Oversee experimental platforms, research, design, model, and implement machine learning models to analyze cloud spend and correlate it with business outcomes.

• Develop predictive and prescriptive models for cost forecasting, anomaly detection, and scenario optimization.

Cloud Cost Optimization AI:

• Architect AI-driven algorithms to simplify and automate FinOps processes, ensuring they are actionable for engineering, finance, and leadership teams.

• Address foundational problems like linking cloud spend to revenue, cost-per-customer metrics, and other key performance indicators (KPIs).

Data Infrastructure & Governance:

• Collaborate with Data Engineering and Architecture teams to scale infrastructure and pipelines.

• Champion data quality, governance, accessibility, and performance.

• Create frameworks for experimentation, analysis, and real-time decision-making.

Innovation:

• Explore and integrate advancements in AI and ML from leading research to keep CloudZero’s technology at the cutting edge.

• Experiment with generative AI, reinforcement learning, and other advanced techniques to drive innovation in FinOps.

Leadership & Culture Building:

• Align your org with the product and engineering teams, and partner to embed AI/ML capabilities into our core platform.

• Promote strong cross-functional collaboration

• Partner with cloud architects and FinOps specialists to ensure models align with real-world business challenges.

• Hire, mentor, and grow a high-performing, diverse team of Data Scientists, ML Engineers and AI experts.

• Foster a culture of curiosity, rigor, knowledge sharing, and continuous learning.

Qualifications:

We’re seeking a hands-on and strategic leader who thrives on solving complex problems and driving innovation. Ideal candidates will have 10+ years of industry experience developing AI/ML systems in production with the following requirements:

• Transformational Leadership: Strategic leadership with the ability to inspire, align, and grow/build high-performing cross-functional teams; fosters a culture of accountability, innovation, and continuous improvement while driving business impact.

• AI/ML Expertise: Proven experience building and deploying AL/ML models (e.g., regression, classification, NLP, deep learning) using modern frameworks and AWS services like Bedrock and SageMaker.

• Cloud Savvy: A strong understanding of cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP) and their cost structures. Experience with cloud cost optimization tools is a plus.

• Programming Skills: Proficiency in Python, R, or similar languages widely used in the data science community. Experience with data processing tools (e.g., Pandas, dbt, Airflow).

• Data Governance: Expertise in working with large-scale, unstructured datasets and data pipelines. Knowledge of databases (Snowflake, Postgres, DynamoDB) and ETL/ELT processes.

• Strategic Mindset: A passion for solving complex business problems through AI/ML. Experience in FinOps or financial modeling is highly desirable.

• Collaboration & Communication: Ability to work cross-functionally with technical and non-technical teams to translate AI/ML insights into actionable outcomes.

• Education: Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Statistics, or a related field desired; PhD a plus.

Why You:
You are passionate about solving hard problems, pushing technological boundaries, and making a tangible impact. Your expertise and leadership will directly influence the success of our AI initiatives and position CloudZero as the leader in AI-driven FinOps. This is an opportunity to be at the forefront of defining how businesses operate in the cloud era.

Summary of what the position calls for:

• Data Scientist: both hands-on and AI leader (player-coach).

• Pragmatism over perfection: Needs to be pragmatic, not purely academic or only focused on GenAI. Do they focus on solving the right problem at the right level of complexity?

• Breadth across ML, AI, and data engineering; willing to work on non-GenAI data problems.

• Future scope to build and manage a growing AI/ML team.

• Full-stack data science comfort: Can they go from data ingestion → modeling → deployment → monitoring?

• Hands-on builder with influential people leadership: Are they excited to build the foundations of a strong team while coaching and motivating others?

• Highly collaborative, excellent communicator, ability to engage and educate others

• Not a “GenAI-only” mindset: Do they see AI/ML broadly, or are they only chasing trendy GenAI topics?

About CloudZero:
Cloud cost management is one of the biggest challenges organizations face today. As cloud adoption continues to accelerate, so do the complexities and costs associated with it — and macroeconomic conditions only increase pressure to prove cloud efficiency. That’s why we built CloudZero: a SaaS platform at the intersection of next-generation cloud cost management and FinOps. CloudZero ingests billing and usage data from all cloud, SaaS, and PaaS providers, organizes it in real time according to our customers’ business structures, lets customers view it at any level of time or resource granularity, and ultimately empowers them to make more informed business decisions.

Since our founding in 2016, our mission has been to make efficient innovation a reality for every cloud-driven organization. At CloudZero, we believe every engineering decision is a buying decision, yet the cost conversation often bypasses the engineers who drive those determinations. To solve this, we’ve built a dynamic, single-page application that answers the complex, data-heavy questions every cloud-based organization needs to ask if they want to grow their company profitably.

To date, we’ve raised over $52 million from leading venture capital firms across the country. We’re solving problems of massive scale, business importance, and complexity in a space that needs it more than ever. We’re growing rapidly and would love for you to be a part of it!

Equal Opportunity Employer
CloudZero is an equal opportunity employer and values diversity. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, sex, gender, gender expression, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status or disability status. All job offers are contingent upon the candidate passing background and reference checks.

Applicants must be authorized to work for ANY employer in the United States. We are unable to sponsor or take over sponsorship of an employment Visa at this time.