Zain Ahmed

MANAGER 2, DATA SCIENCE / STAFF DATA SCIENTIST at PAYPAL INDIA PVT LTD

Handle

@zain-e2ag

Role

MANAGER 2, DATA SCIENCE / STAFF DATA SCIENTIST

Company

PAYPAL INDIA PVT LTD

Location

Bangalore, India

About

I lead data science and AI initiatives in BFSI, fraud, and credit risk analytics. I design and deploy end-to-end machine learning systems, including LLM applications and agentic AI systems, and build and scale data science teams.

Experience

• MANAGER 2, DATA SCIENCE / STAFF DATA SCIENTIST at PAYPAL INDIA PVT LTD
  Apr 2024 to now - Bangalore, India
  Designed and deployed agentic LLM and XGBoost pipelines for SMS pumping fraud detection and cost anomaly identification. Delivered $24M in annual cost savings through detection latency reduction, SMS model savings, and disputes operations savings.
• MANAGER 1, DATA SCIENCE at PAYPAL INDIA PVT LTD
  Jan 2022 to Mar 2024 - Bangalore, India
  Led design and deployment of 3 supervised XGBoost ML models for identity risk scoring, achieving 94% AUC and preventing $20M in annual fraud losses. Managed 4 direct reports and achieved 100% team retention.
• ASSISTANT VICE PRESIDENT, DATA SCIENCE at CITIBANK
  Feb 2020 to Jan 2022 - Bangalore, India
  Led a team of 8 data scientists building machine learning models for credit card and retail banking. Designed and deployed 5 production ML models and established a new ML modeling team from scratch.
• MANAGER, ML DATA SCIENTIST at CITIBANK
  Aug 2017 to Jan 2020 - Bangalore, India
  Architected a credit offer optimization engine using XGBoost and Random Forest models, improving cross-sell conversion 18% and recommendation accuracy 32%. Built a machine learning automation tool that enabled 20+ modelers to reduce development cycle time 50%.
• ASSISTANT MANAGER, ML DATA SCIENTIST at CITIBANK
  Oct 2015 to Jul 2017 - Bangalore, India
  Designed a marketing channel optimization framework using Logistic Regression, Random Forest and Boosting ML techniques, reducing marketing spend inefficiency 22% and improving campaign response rates 15%. Developed a next-best-offer product recommender, improving relevance and uptake by ~18%.
• ASSISTANT MANAGER, CREDIT RISK at OCWEN FINANCIAL SOLUTIONS
  May 2015 to Sep 2015 - Bangalore, India
  Established the Credit Risk function for the mortgage servicing business, defining processes, metrics, and analytical support for key stakeholders.
• SENIOR BUSINESS ANALYST, CREDIT RISK at TEG ANALYTICS
  Oct 2014 to May 2015 - Bangalore, India
  Developed risk adjudication scoring models and direct mail response prediction models for a Canada-based finance firm. Conducted cohort analysis, LTV analysis, profitability studies, and churn prediction across loan origination, transaction, and collections systems.
• BUSINESS ANALYST, DATA SCIENCE at TEG ANALYTICS
  Nov 2012 to Sep 2014 - Bangalore, India
  Delivered data analytics projects across multiple domains, including regression analysis on web visitor trends, competitive price tracking, and market basket analysis. Responsible for requirements gathering, project execution, and training junior analysts.

Education

• IIM KOZHIKODE
  PHD, ECONOMICS
  2023 to now
  On going
• IIM RANCHI
  EXECUTIVE PROGRAM IN BUSINESS ANALYTICS AND BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE (EPΒΑΒΙ)
  2013 to 2014
• NIT SILCHAR
  B.TECH, CIVIL ENGINEERING
  2008 to 2012

Skills

• RAG Pipelines
• Tool-Calling
• FAST API
• Pydantic Validation
• Machine Learning
• Neural Networks
• Boosting Techniques
• Time Series
• Credit & Fraud Risk
• BFSI
• Management
• Performance Reviews

Links

• LinkedIn

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