Tariq Akhtar

S

Senior Data Scientist at EY | ex-Rolls-Royce

EY
Edinburgh, UK · GMT (UTC+0)
10+ years experience
University of Cambridge
English
CollaboratingOpen to work
Messaging unavailable

Overview

10 years in data science and analytics, the last 1 at EY, where I work on the recommendations team. Shipped a ranking change that increased conversion 7.9%. Before that: Rolls-Royce and Boston Consulting Group. Chess on lunch breaks.

Good reasons to reach out
  • Roles in recommendation systems
  • Collaborators for my side project
  • Thoughtful intros to people in my field
  • Questions about recommendation systems
Please don't message about
  • Unpaid work or spec projects
  • Offshore staffing offers
  • Crypto token projects

Checks messages twice a week

Skills
PyTorchembeddingsrankingPythonrecommender systemsSpark
CollaboratingLooking to collaborate
closes in 3 months

Building a free course on embeddings for students - need co-instructors

Project
A free course on embeddings for students - need co-instructors
Skills needed
PyTorch, Frontend
Time commitment
Part-time
Outcome
Conference talk

No money involved, just a good project. Async-first.

Edinburgh, UK · remote OKembeddingspythonpytorch
Open
Open to workLooking for a role
closes in 3 months

Next role: Data Scientist in insurance, Edinburgh or hybrid

Target roles
Data Scientist
Level
Senior
Industries
Logistics, Healthtech
Work mode
Hybrid
Available
Immediately
Work authorization
Authorized to work in the UK
What I'm looking for
Early-stage company (Series B) where recommendation systems is core to the product.
Not interested in
Pure people management

10 years in recommendation systems. Strongest at Spark and embeddings. Serving notice now.

Edinburgh, UKrecommender systemssparkpython
Open

Experience

  1. Senior Data Scientist
    Apr 2026 - Present
    EY · 6 mo · Full-time · Edinburgh, UK
    • Shipped a ranking change that increased conversion 5.2%.
    • Taught SQL to 53 non-analysts.
  2. Data Analyst
    Dec 2023 - Dec 2025
    Rolls-Royce · 2 yr · Full-time · Edinburgh, UK
    • Shipped a ranking change that increased conversion 3.4%.
    • Replaced 67 hand-built dashboards with one metrics layer people trust.
  3. Data Scientist
    Apr 2022 - Sep 2023
    Boston Consulting Group · 1 yr 5 mo · Full-time · Edinburgh, UK
    • Wrote the metric definitions the leadership team reviews every week.
  4. Data Analyst
    Feb 2021 - Apr 2022
    Indeed · 1 yr 2 mo · Full-time · Edinburgh, UK
    • Wrote the metric definitions the leadership team reviews every week.
  5. Data Scientist
    Apr 2017 - Feb 2021
    Sky · 3 yr 10 mo · Full-time · Edinburgh, UK
    • Taught SQL to 114 non-analysts.

Projects

Open-source embeddings toolkit
2026

A small library for recommendation systems that 719 developers star on GitHub.

References

No references yet.

Education

  1. University of Cambridge
    BA, Statistics
    2013 - 2016

Details

Compensation expectations
What they are targeting for their next role.
Visible to connections
Direct contact details
Direct email and a scheduling link.
Visible to connections

Trusted Partners

Sponsored