Data Science Lead

Nofence is a Norwegian scale up who has built the world's first virtual fencing solution for livestock. As we aim to revolutionize livestock management we will need top-notch competence in our Feature team, and we are now looking for a Data Science Lead. Elevate your career with us and be at the forefront of innovation in agricultural technology

As Data Science Lead at Nofence, you'll be both strategist and practitioner. You will be reporting directly to the VP of Engineering and spend around half your time shaping the discipline: setting direction, building frameworks, and elevating how we do data science across the company. The other half you'll be hands-on in a product team, applying your skills directly to our fleet data and collaborating closely with engineers, product managers, and designers. For you to be able to focus on your work, you will not immediately have direct reports but will be responsible for the overall Data Science discipline across product teams.

Your main responsibilities will be:

• Shape the discipline. Define and evolve our data science strategy, establish best practices, and strengthen the foundations of our work by helping to build and maintain proper data pipelines that enable faster, more reliable, and easier analysis. Support our current data scientists and data analyst in aligning with these frameworks to increase their product impact.
• Guide and mentor. Support our data scientists in developing their skills toward customer value and impact, providing coaching and review.
• Strengthen experimentation. Build robust frameworks for A/B and feature testing, including proper event definitions, statistical guardrails, and automated reporting to drive evidence-based decisions.
• Advance fleet analytics. Design reliable, repeatable methods for analyzing spatiotemporal and time-series telemetry from 100k+ collars (GPS, motion, environment, device metrics).
• Enable self-serve insights. Lead and collaborate with data colleagues to improve dashboards, metrics definitions, and tooling so product and engineering teams can access reliable insights with minimal friction.
• Stay hands-on. Deliver analyses and models yourself as a core member of a cross-functional product team, ensuring that strategy and execution stay tightly connected.
• Partner broadly. Work closely with product, UX, firmware, backend, and app engineers, as well as support and ops, to ensure data informs product decisions end-to-end.

You'll be working with a stack that includes AWS, ClickHouse, Postgres, SQL, Python, ECS, Windmill, Grafana, Datadog, and Deepnote but you'll also have room to evolve it where it makes sense.

We're looking for a hands-on leader who can raise the bar on how we use data while rolling up their sleeves on real analyses.

You might be a great fit if you have:

• Experience in scale-ups. 7+ years in applied data science or ML, including time in startups/scaleups where you've had to balance scrappiness with building for scale.
• Track record of architecting and building frameworks. You've designed experimentation platforms, analytics standards, or data science best practices that scaled beyond a single team.
• Experience with bringing ML models to the edge on constrained hardware (embedded devices, RTOS). Familiarity with model optimization techniques such as heavy quantization, pruning, and resource-aware inference.
• Strong analytical chops. Deep knowledge of statistics and experimental design, comfortable with messy, real-world telemetry data.
• Hands-on skills. Advanced Python and SQL; proven experience taking analyses and models from notebook to production (CI/CD, live data models, monitoring).
• Communication and mentoring. You enjoy coaching other data scientists, reviewing their work, and raising their product impact without being a formal manager.
• Collaborative mindset. You thrive in cross-functional product teams, working side by side with engineers, PMs, and designers to make data-driven product decisions.
• Curiosity and pragmatism. You like diving deep into the data but also know when "good enough" is the right call to move the product forward.

The right candidate is also preferred to have the following qualifications:

• Relevant Bachelor or Masters degree, or equivalent.
• Enjoy working in an autonomous cross-functional team.
• Excellent analytical and problem solving skills.
• Fluent English oral and written communication skills. Our working language is English.

Managing livestock has always been a challenge. Humanity has tried everything from herding with dogs to walling the animals in with barbed wire, electric, and wooden fences, but these are costly and time-consuming solutions and often in conflict with the local wildlife. It has also left vast areas of potential pasture overgrown and underutilized.
Until now.

Enter virtual fences.

What started as a small group of farmers and engineers with a big idea has become Nofence: the world's first virtual fencing solution for livestock. Curious about how it works? Find out more here.

Nofence is a dynamic scale-up, creating a work atmosphere that's anything but ordinary. It's a place where dedication and innovation are the norm, offering great opportunities for your personal and professional growth. We think it is important to have fun while working hard, both for it to be worthwhile, and because it improves our output and chance of success.

If you're the right fit, you'll be part of a tight-knit team, supporting each other to make a real impact on the agricultural industry. With offices in Oslo and Trondheim for the city strollers and our Molde office surrounded by nature for the outdoor enthusiasts, we've got the best of both worlds.

We believe in seeing results fast As an engineer with us, your work won't be lost in the bureaucratic shuffle. You'll witness the immediate impact of your contributions in real-time, influencing the evolution of our cutting-edge technology.

Be part of a team that's always looking forward, where your ideas and creativity are not only welcomed but also essential to our mutual success

Are you ready to change pasture? After all, the grass is sometimes greener on the other side. Also, just like the soil needs a balanced diversity of nutrients to thrive, a company needs a diversity of hearts and minds. We are an equal opportunity employer

We will evaluate candidates continuously. If you have any questions about Nofence or regarding the application, please reach out to our VP of engineering