Head AI & Data

Location: Bristol, Hybrid, in office 2 days every 3 weeks

Salary: £100,000 - £115,000 + Share Options

Reporting to: VP of Technology

About us

Duel is a SaaS company on a mission to make Brand Advocacy the industry standard philosophy for building brilliant retail brands. It was founded by world record-breaking adventurer and former brand ambassador Paul Archer. We exist to show that companies built for advocacy can change the world. In today's hyper connected world in which social media is now twice the size of all other media channels combined and entirely user-generated, the most successful brands are the ones investing in people and in community, not in ads.

The Duel Brand Advocacy Solution allows enterprise brands to do just that. We have onboarded over 60 influential brands such as Abercrombie & Fitch, Charlotte Tilbury, Spanx, Victoria’s Secret, LUSH and Elemis. The Duel team's global presence includes offices in New York City & London. Our team of 60+ is composed of psychologists, brand experts and community builders, combining cutting-edge brand expertise with seasoned SaaS experience.

Backed by top European VCs, Duel recently announced a $16 million Series A, which will accelerate growth in the US from our base in New York, and bring our entirely AI-driven product vision to life to equip brands with the solution needed to drive growth through thousands of advocates, customers, creators and brand ambassadors.

The Role

We’re looking for a Head of AI & Data to lead our data pod: you will lead a talented, distributed team (Data Engineer, Data Scientist, Product Data Analytics Manager) with a mandate to scale the AI function further in 2026.This role sits at the intersection of Duel technology, strategy, and product delivery. 

You will shape Duel’s data vision, evolve our modern data stack for scale, and make sure we get the maximum value from data across our internal operations and customer products. You’ll work closely with teams across Engineering, Product, and Senior Leadership to define and deliver data driven outcomes that move Duel forward.

We are evolving toward large scale data systems, modern streaming capabilities, and advanced AI/ML pipelines that support both internal teams and customer facing product

We’re Looking for Someone Who Will…

• Step in as the architect of Duel’s entire AI and Data ecosystem. You’ll hold the keys to our Advocate First data model, the engine that powers everything we do and define the metrics that tell us whether we’re winning. This is where your strategic vision becomes the compass for the whole company.

• Design the blueprint for everything from data foundations to advanced ML applications. You’ll set the tempo for how fast we innovate and how far we can go.

AI Innovation

• Bring an AI-native mindset and turn it into real, shipped intelligence. You’ll blend classical ML and modern LLM techniques, weaving together RAG/GraphRAG, model distillation, fine-tuning (PEFT/LoRA), and agentic workflows. Your work won’t sit in a notebook,  it will live inside the product, shaping how brands interact with their advocates in ways they’ve never experienced before.

Data Architecture

• Own our Snowflake data warehouse like a master builder. You’ll design systems that evolve with us, ingesting signals from AWS and streaming technologies like RedPanda/Kafka. As our data grows, your architecture will ensure it remains fast, intuitive, and always ready to support the next breakthrough feature.

Product Collaboration

• Sit shoulder-to-shoulder with Product and Engineering to embed intelligence into the Duel platform itself. Every feature you help shape will be smarter, more predictive, and more impactful. You’ll ensure the data model scales not just with our needs, but with our ambition.

Security & Compliance

• Be the guardian of trust. You’ll design our authentication frameworks (RBAC, RLS), uphold our ISO27001 standards, and lead us toward ISO42001 — helping Duel become one of the first truly AI-governed platforms. Your work will reassure customers that innovation and responsibility can coexist.

Lead, Mentor, and Grow a High-Performing Team

• Guide a team of 6+ talented data engineers, scientists, and analysts. You’ll shape their growth, push their curiosity, and build a team that thrives on shared momentum — a group that’s proud of the problems they solve together.

Own the Evolution of Our Data Platform

• Build for reliability, scale, and speed. As data volume, variety, and velocity grow, your platform will remain the calm, powerful engine beneath it all.

• Your decisions will shorten time-to-insight, sharpen decision-making, and unlock new ways for teams across Duel to move faster and think smarter.

• Create clarity, consistency, and trust across every dataset and pipeline. When someone reaches for data at Duel, they’ll know it’s reliable because you made it that way

Partner Across the Business

• From Product to Marketing to the C-suite, you’ll collaborate with leaders across Duel to deliver data programs that reshape how we work and how our customers experience the platform.

• Encourage bold thinking. Champion rapid testing. Empower the team to apply ML and AI only where it creates real value and to push back where it doesn’t.

We’d Love to Hear from You If You Have…

• Led AI, ML, or Data functions in a SaaS or platform environment, with ownership from architecture to production delivery.

• Hands-on experience shipping AI driven features, not just prototypes or research.

• Proven success managing multi-disciplinary teams across data engineering, data science, and analytics.

• Deep competence with LLMs, including RAG/GraphRAG, model distillation, and fine-tuning (PEFT/LoRA).

• Strong foundations in classical ML/NLP and modern AI tooling.

• Expertise in data warehousing (Snowflake), real-time pipelines (Kafka/RedPanda), AWS infrastructure, and transformation/orchestration tools (dbt, Dagster).

• Solid understanding of RBAC, RLS, and security/compliance frameworks (ISO27001; ISO42001 is a plus).

• AI-native mindset with Python/SQL proficiency

• Ability to partner with Product and Engineering to build AI-native features that deliver real customer value.

Nice to have: Academic/University collaboration (KTPs), Grant application experience.

Person

• A bias toward action and iterative delivery over academic perfection.

• Curiosity for new research paired with commercial pragmatism.

• A collaborative, ego-free leadership style that builds trust across teams.

• Strong ownership mindset: you raise the bar while helping others do the same.

• You keep teams aligned around outcomes, not ego or function.

• You stay transparent about risks and trade-offs while protecting quality and ethics.

• You uphold our BBUL culture: brilliant in your craft and utterly lovely in how you show up.

The Dueligan Culture

• We’re building a remarkable company with remarkable people and a remarkable culture. Advocacy is our north star, for customers and employees.

• A High Trust, Tight Ship, full of Bloody Brilliant & Utterly Lovely People doing their best work together.

• We value trust and freedom above all else, combined with deep ownership, execution, and candor.

• Dueligans are the largest shareholders in Duel. We take ownership seriously.

In-Person and Remote Working Balance

We do much of our best work together in person, which is why we’re hiring people within commuting distance of our London, Bristol or New York offices. But we also recognise the value of deep work at home. Our hybrid philosophy gives you freedom and flexibility, you do you, as long as it’s not at the expense of others.

Duel Perks and Package

• Flexible working hours - if you need to fit around childcare or need to work around your life, we understand.

• Around 32 days of Annual Leave (28 excluding bank holidays and an extended break between Christmas and New Year, when we close the office). On-going training where required.

• Options scheme for all full-time employees - it’s important to us that everybody owns a part of the company and shares in the benefits of what we build.

• Company MacBook to work from

• £350 WFH Set-Up

• Headspace Contributions

• Personal Development budget and support

• 2 additional days leave for volunteering