Data scientist (Intern) @ 🎽 Tunic Pay

Tunic Pay
Tunic Pay

Data Science

Posted on Aug 5, 2026
Apply now

We’re looking for a curious and motivated data scientist to spend 3+ months with our fintech startup in London. This internship / industrial placement offers a unique opportunity to make a meaningful impact, gain hands-on experience, and work closely with the founding team of a seed-stage company. You’ll have the autonomy to take ownership of exciting projects, while receiving support and mentorship to help you grow. If you’re excited about contributing to the fight against scams and financial crime at an early-stage startup, read on to learn more ⬇️

About Tunic Pay 🎽

We’re on a mission to rid the world of scams. Last year, consumers reported over 200k scams in the UK alone, and it’s likely that many more went unreported. At Tunic Pay, we’re rearchitecting payments infrastructure to bring that number to 0 by giving unprecedented insight into and control of each transaction. Our core infrastructure is building Payment Intelligence, and eventually the governance for real-time payments.

We are a super early & super fortunate fintech startup — we closed our seed round in November ’23 💡, and we already find ourselves with the amazing opportunity of working with some of the largest banks and most exciting FinTechs in the UK🧤. This is our opportunity to lose. To get there, there are ton of challenges we need to tackle, from crafting delightful experiences that drive conversion through our consumer-facing touchpoints, to integrating diverse data and models to maximize predictiveness, to developing the next generation of security- & privacy-protecting protocols. And as if that’s not hard enough, we are working with some of our customers’ most sensitive data and need to deliver 24/7/365 uptime. Our goals are almost ludicrously ambitious, but scams have to be solved systemically, and we think we’re the team to do it 🦸‍♀️.

We believe strongly in-person collaboration. Our team spends 3+ days a week jamming together in our London office (Farringdon), and we believe this face time is the best way to support you and your growth too.

About us 👋

Nicky (co-founder) previously co-founded Nova Credit, helping immigrants access credit. We’ve served millions of immigrants, raised over $130M (GC, Index, KPCB), built a team of 100+ people across three continents. Before that it was Stanford MBA, Bain, international development, and Cambridge. 🇬🇷-🇬🇧 married to🇰🇷-🇺🇲, parent, intermittent reader/runner, smack talker.

Nico (co-founder) spent the last 4 years as CEO of Casai, LatAm’s largest short-term rental operator with almost 2k apartments in 🇲🇽 and 🇧🇷 and hosted >100k guests. Previously met Nicky as Nova Credit’s first biz hire right after the seed round. Started career @ BCG after studying at Yale 🐶 & Oxford. Born in 🇵🇭 & grew up in Memphis, TN, the birthplace of rock & roll 🎸.

Cyrus (engineering lead) has experience across a wide range of industries and has built large-scale systems in a variety of sensitive contexts from banking 🏦 to defence 🛡️. Has been working with Nicky and Nico since late last year. Ex-Palantir and Morgan Stanley, before that Imperial College. Statistically most likely to be found walking my dog 🐕 and would often rather be climbing rocks 🧗‍♂️.

And here is a lil video about us as humans (feel free to watch @2x 🙈) 👇.

About you 🤓

Here are some thoughts on who would be successful in the role. Our interview process will be designed around them:

  • Curiosity: You’re excited to explore new tools, data, and approaches, and you’re not afraid to ask questions.
  • Problem-solving: You enjoy digging into data to uncover insights and help solve challenging problems.
  • Team-oriented: You’re ready to learn from and collaborate with a small, motivated team to achieve big goals.
  • Growth-mindset: You’re eager to develop your skills and tackle new challenges in a startup environment.

    • Some hard skills we’d value

  • Programming: Familiarity with tools like Python, SQL or similar for analyzing data.
  • Machine Learning: Understanding of:
  • Different model types (e.g., regression, clustering, gradient boosting).
  • Common metrics for evaluating models (e.g., accuracy, precision, recall, f1-score, AUC-ROC).
  • Methods for training and validating models, such as cross-validation, train-test splits, and hyperparameter tuning.
  • Statistics: Comfort with statistical concepts and how to use experiments to guide decisions.
  • Eagerness to Learn: Open to developing skills in data infrastructure, analytics, and model deployment.
  • LLM: Basic understanding of Large Language Models and how they can be applied in data science is a bonus!

    • Not got 100% of qualifications? Research shows that women and under-represented minorities are less likely to apply for a role if they do not have 100% of the requirements. We’re paying attention to this, so please feel free to apply regardless (<2mins) or send us a note on info@tunicpay.com if you’d like to discuss if there’s a fit.

    Stuff you’d do

  • Explore ways to use data and cutting-edge tools like Large Language Models (LLMs) to create multi-agent systems.
  • Analyse large datasets to find patterns and insights, helping identify new opportunities for automation and risk reduction.
  • Take ownership of smaller data projects, monitoring their performance and suggesting improvements.
  • Learn to design, build, and test models and data pipelines that support analytics and data-driven projects.
  • Help ensure data accuracy and follow good practices for managing data across different projects.
  • Work with the team to continuously improve our data systems as we grow and tackle new challenges.
  • Participate in experiments to test ideas for automating tasks and processes using LLMs and other data science models.

    • Last but not least, the interview process ⏳

    We are seeking to make our interview as experiential as possible in order for both sides to get the most signal on what it would be like to work together.

  • Initial application (<2 mins): Submit your LinkedIn (or CV) in the application link below (we don’t believe in cover letters or unnecessary work here!) 👇
  • Meet-and-greet (45 mins): Introductory call — an opportunity to get to know each other, discuss your background, and understand your interests in data science. Expect to engage in a light, open-ended problem-solving exercise tailored to data science concepts.
  • Project-Based Interview On-site Session (2 hours, can be done remotely): A deep-dive session focused on a data science case study or project. You will work through a real-world problem involving data analysis, modeling, and interpreting insights. We will provide relevant materials in advance to help you prepare. The session will also include discussions on data-driven decision-making and the role of data science in our business. Additionally, you'll spend some time meeting with founding team to learn more about our culture, values, and mission — this is your chance to see if we're the right fit for you, as much as it is for us!
  • References and offer: Ideally over dinner!
    • Apply now
    See more open positions at Tunic Pay