From Intuition to Impact: The Art of Data Science at Equifax

Lead Data Scientist Steven Liu believes data science requires intuition and a healthy dose of trial and error. Whether he is mastering a line on the slopes after a long week or trying a new recipe in the kitchen, he brings that unique philosophy to his work.

"Data science is many times more of an art than a science," Steven says. "Both cooking and data science essentially experiment with ingredients, or inputs, to optimize some sort of output, whether that's flavor or predictive power. You follow recipes and best practices, but you also have to trust your intuition and adapt to ever-changing data."

For five years, Steven has brought that blend of art and intuition to his work at Equifax in Canada. His journey shows how a culture of trust lets employees drive their own careers while scaling local creations to a global market.

Building Skills Through Internal Movement

Steven started his time at Equifax during the pandemic in a client-facing delivery role. That position gave him an important foundation of skills: math, business, and statistics.

"The early business exposure solidified my belief that you always need to consider the business problem you're trying to solve," Steven explains. "It’s easy to get lost in the technical problems, but you have to understand the effect your tools have on everyone downstream."

His talent did not stay hidden for long. Leadership actively pushed employees to share their wins, which caught the eye of an internal manager. Within a year, his internal reputation led to a new role dedicated to core data modeling.

"That internal mobility reflects the power of visibility here," Steven notes. "Our leadership constantly stresses that we need to shout about our work. Because of that open culture, my manager saw that I had the precise skills needed for the next big challenge."

The Freedom to Work: Creating COSMO

His new team had an open assignment to standardize and automate modeling. Instead of handing him strict rules, leadership gave him full independence to experiment. His manager even protected his schedule from outside distractions so he could build something new. The result was COSMO (Comprehensive Open Source Model Orchestrator), an internal workflow tool that automates model development and has the potential to cut a three-week development cycle down to three days.

"Because I was given the runway to experiment and potentially even fail, we made a massive swing in innovation rather than just incremental improvements," Steven says. The tool quickly outgrew its local roots. Steven shared COSMO with Harald Schneider  and other technical leaders worldwide, and teams in London, Australia, India, and Brazil adopted the tool.

"It was really cool to watch it sprout wings and grow into something that genuinely helps other geographies. I’d imagine it’s a small part of what parents feel when they watch their children move out," Steven says. "At the end of the day, my goal was to save people time and make my colleagues' lives easier. Seeing the team enthusiastically adopt it was all the validation I needed."

The Data Science Team Culture

Now specializing in AI development, Steven stresses that while technical skills are essential, soft skills and communication dictate team velocity and atmosphere.

"A happy, respectful, collaborative environment is just conducive to a productive one," Steven explains. "If you have a productive environment without those characteristics, I think you’d just end up with lots of turnover and burnout and that’ll end up eating into productivity anyways."

That collaborative spirit extends well beyond his Canadian office. Through global analytics committees and monthly knowledge-sharing sessions, team members regularly cross-pollinate ideas with peers across London, Australia, and South America.

To keep that global ecosystem feeling personal, Steven actively works to eliminate stiff corporate barriers and believes it makes everyday work far more effective.

"Honestly, I think ‘professionalism’ can be taken too far. I think often that guise of ‘professionalism’ can hinder communication," Steven says. "I want to foster an environment of camaraderie where we can be casual enough for straightforward communication with minimal politics and red tape. If you need help, I don’t need you to send me a formal email and loop my manager in.  Just message me and I’ll be happy to help."

Are you looking for a team that values your technical skills and trusts your intuition?

Learn more about available opportunities at Equifax.