Principal Data Scientist

About the Role

We are seeking a Principal Data Scientist with strategic acumen and profound expertise in AI to lead the design and enhancement of decision intelligence delivery at an enterprise scale at Blackbaud. This position merges strategic priorities with advanced AI knowledge to revolutionize the integration of predictive modeling, business logic, and generative AI into dependable, production-ready intelligence.

Collaborating with teams across data, platform, and business units, this role will shape the formation, explanation, and governance of decisions—fueling trustworthy AI-driven solutions that enable organizations to act swiftly and confidently. It is a pivotal leadership function in Blackbaud's transformation into an AI-native enterprise, embedding intelligence within products and decision workflows.

Responsibilities

• Lead the creation of enterprise-wide decision intelligence frameworks combining predictive models, business rules, and generative AI to generate clear and actionable insights.
• Develop scalable decision modeling paradigms supporting diverse functions such as recommendations, prioritization, risk evaluation, anomaly detection, and summarization.
• Define methods to convert contextual data into decision-ready intelligence that is transparent, explainable, and consistent with enterprise semantics.
• Oversee the development of production-standard machine learning and generative AI applications, ensuring reliability, testability, and grounded output.
• Construct and refine evaluation systems that assess decision-making quality, measuring aspects like accuracy, calibration, drift, groundedness, and temporal consistency.
• Collaborate extensively with data, architecture, and platform divisions to guarantee decision systems are scalable, observable, and comply with organizational standards.
• Lead investigations into the root causes of decision or model malfunctions and translate findings into broad improvements across functions.

Qualifications

• A minimum of eight years' experience implementing applied analytics, machine learning, or AI solutions within production environments.
• Advanced proficiency in predictive modeling and decision systems, including capabilities in evaluation, continuous monitoring, drift detection, and threshold management. Solid comprehension of generative AI technologies, particularly grounding methods, structured output formation, and typical failure modes.
• Hands-on experience utilizing Python and contemporary machine learning or AI development pipelines.
• Demonstrated excellence in guiding technical strategy and fostering cross-team collaboration to promote scalable and responsible AI adoption.

Additional Information

Blackbaud champions social impact through technologies driven by purpose and ethically governed AI. Our Intelligence for Good® vision shapes a culture where innovation, trust, and human expertise converge to empower organizations in making a meaningful difference globally.

Blackbaud embraces equal employment opportunities, maintaining an inclusive workplace welcoming candidates regardless of race, color, religion, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, nationality, disability, age, veteran status, or other legally protected attributes.