Data Scientist (Hybrid)

At Selective, we don't just insure uniquely, we employ uniqueness.

Selective is a midsized U.S. domestic property and casualty insurance company with a history of strong, consistent financial performance for nearly 100 years. Selective's unique position as both a leading insurance group and an employer of choice is recognized in a wide variety of awards and honors, including listing in Forbes Best Midsize Employers in 2025 and certification as a Great Place to Work in 2025 for the sixth consecutive year.

Employees are empowered and encouraged to Be Uniquely You by being their true, unique selves and contributing their diverse talents, experiences, and perspectives to our shared success. Together, we are a high-performing team working to serve our customers responsibly by helping to mitigate loss, keep them safe, and restore their lives and businesses after an insured loss occurs.

Responsible for development and maintenance of analytical solutions through applications of Data Mining, Machine Learning, Predictive Modeling, Generative AI and other emerging technologies for current and future business needs. Lead the supervised and unsupervised model development efforts in partnership with business and Information Technology (IT) stakeholders from diverse functional areas. Proactively monitor outcome post installation and report actionable insights. All job duties and responsibilities must be carried out in compliance with applicable legal and regulatory requirements.

Note: (For NJ candidates) This role will be located at our future headquarters in Short Hills, N.J. Until the new headquarters is operational, the successful candidate will be offered the ability to work in our Branchville, N.J. location during this interim period.

• Understand the competitive marketplace, business issues, and data challenges to deliver actionable insights, recommendations, and business processes.
• Manipulate high-volume, high-dimensionality data from varying sources to highlight patterns, anomalies, relationships, and trends.
• Perform descriptive and diagnostics analysis to provide actionable insights for a range of business customers via effective visualization.
• Perform prescriptive analysis seeking for statistical inference providing information that will drive strategic decision making related to marketing, claims and underwriting.
• Develop predictive models and machine learning solutions to investigate problems, detect patterns and recommend solutions. Work with Information Technology to integrate the model into production environment.
• Perform model maintenance and post installation monitoring, including performance tracking, model refit/refresh, documentation, and version control.
• Research and prototype advanced data science techniques like Text Mining, Natural Language Processing (NLP), Image Recognition and Robotic Process Automation (RPA).
• Research and recommend new data, tools, or modelling techniques to enrich analytics solutions in alignment to policy lifecycle.
• Participate in the broader community to stay current with industry trends including cutting-edge methodology, software, platform and recommend best practices.

Knowledge and Requirements

• Professional statistics/quantitative skills.
• Hands-on experience of solving business problem with various multi variate statistical methods including generalized linear model, survival model, time series, mixed effects model etc.
• Familiar with the whole life cycle of predictive modeling, including data provision, model development, validation and testing, model deployment.
• Proficient with manipulating data with enterprise-scale database systems (SQL, SAS).
• Proficient with at least one scripting language such as R, Python, or Java.
• Experience with BI tools such as Tableau, Spotfile etc. is preferred.
• Knowledge of HTML for web app development is preferred.
• Hands on experience with Big Data / Hadoop / Spark is preferred.
• Experience with version control workflow such as Git is plus.

Education and Experience

• PhD with 1 year of Predictive Modeling Experience, or Masters with 2-3 years of Predictive Modeling Experience or Bachelors with 4-5 Years of Data Science Experience and education in Statistics, Economics, Computer Science, Mathematics or related field preferred.
• Insurance industry experience preferred.

Selective Insurance offers a total rewards package that includes a competitive base salary, incentive plan eligibility at all levels, and a wide array of benefits designed to help you and your family stay healthy, achieve your financial goals, and balance the demands of your work and personal life. These benefits include comprehensive health care plans, retirement savings plan with company match, discounted Employee Stock Purchase Program, tuition assistance and reimbursement programs, and 20 days of paid time off. Additional details about our total rewards package can be found by visiting our benefits page.

The actual base salary is based on geographic location, and the range is representative of salaries for this role throughout Selective's footprint. Additional considerations include relevant education, qualifications, experience, skills, performance, and business needs.

Selective is an Equal Employment Opportunity employer. That means we respect and value every individual's unique opinions, beliefs, abilities, and perspectives. We are committed to promoting a welcoming culture that celebrates diverse talent, individual identity, different points of view and experiences - and empowers employees to contribute new ideas that support our continued and growing success. Building a highly engaged team is one of our core strategic imperatives, which we believe is enhanced by diversity, equity, and inclusion. We expect and encourage all employees and all of our business partners to embrace, practice, and monitor the attitudes, values, and goals of acceptance; address biases; and foster diversity of viewpoints and opinions.

For Massachusetts Applicants

It is unlawful in Massachusetts to require or administer a lie detector test as a condition of employment or continued employment. An employer who violates this law shall be subject to criminal penalties and civil liability.