Staff Data Scientist

Description:

Proofpoint is a leading cybersecurity company protecting organizations’ greatest assets and biggest risks vulnerabilities in people. With an integrated suite of cloud-based solutions, Proofpoint helps companies around the world stop targeted threats, safeguard their data, and make their users more resilient against cyber-attacks. Leading organizations of all sizes, including more than half of the Fortune 1000, rely on Proofpoint for people-centric security and compliance solutions mitigating their most critical risks across email, the cloud, social media, and the web. We are singularly devoted to helping our customers protect their greatest assets and biggest security risk their people. That’s why we’re a leader in next-generation cybersecurity. Protection Starts with People.

Proofpoint is hiring a Staff Data Scientist / ML Engineer to lead multiple Data Science, GenAI, and AI Engineering initiatives. The ideal candidate will drive the development and deployment of innovative machine learning and generative AI solutions, working cross-functionally with DevOps, product, and data engineering teams. This leadership role requires deep technical expertise, hands-on implementation experience, and a strong vision for scalable AI systems that power real-world applications in cybersecurity.

Responsibilities
 

• Lead the development of machine learning models and advanced analytics solutions to solve complex business problems.
• Design and implement generative AI and large language model (LLM) applications, including fine-tuning and domain adaptation for cybersecurity use cases.
• Collaborate with engineering teams to build scalable and secure LLM-based systems (retrieval-augmented generation, prompt engineering, evaluation pipelines).
• Architect and lead AI solutions across full lifecycle—from experimentation to MLOps pipelines and production deployment.
• Design experiments and use statistical analysis to measure the impact of various business strategies.
• Oversee the deployment of machine learning and LLM models in production, ensuring performance, scalability, and responsible AI practices.
• Lead the development of model performance monitoring, observability, and continuous learning pipelines.
• Define technical direction for LLM and GenAI adoption, including benchmarking open-source and commercial models.
• Champion AI/ML best practices including model governance, reproducibility, and ethical AI considerations.
• Promote a data-driven and AI-forward culture within the organization and advocate for cutting-edge AI adoption across teams.
• Stay current with advancements in LLMs, GenAI, AI engineering, and emerging AI regulations.
   

Qualifications

Education
 

• PhD or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Data Science, Machine Learning, Statistics, or related discipline.
   

Experience
 

• 10+ years of experience in data science or applied machine learning, with 3+ years in a technical leadership or managerial role.
• Proven track record of designing, developing, and deploying ML and GenAI solutions at scale.
• Hands-on experience working with LLMs (e.g., OpenAI, Anthropic, LLaMA, Mistral) and GenAI frameworks (e.g., LangChain, LlamaIndex, Hugging Face).
• Experience in cybersecurity or enterprise-scale threat detection systems is a strong plus.