Toronto has one of North America's strongest AI ecosystems, built on world-class research and a dense cluster of banks, insurers and fintech companies. Demand for data scientists in the city is high, and many Toronto companies are building data science capacity in India. The opportunity is real, but so is the risk of hiring candidates who are strong in theory and weak in business impact.

This post offers a practical framework for assessing data scientists from India.

Define the type of data scientist

"Data scientist" covers very different jobs. Before hiring, decide which you need:

Product or analytics data scientist: experimentation, metrics and insight for product decisions

Machine learning data scientist: building and improving predictive models

Decision science in financial services: credit risk, pricing, fraud or marketing models with regulatory scrutiny

For Toronto companies hiring in India , especially in banking and insurance, the third profile needs particular care around model governance and…