Negotiated levelling-up to Senior Data Scientist at Pearson

I'd been job hunting for about seven weeks when I finally landed on Pearson's careers page and spotted their Junior Data Scientist listing. I'd already sent out 28 applications across London by then, cycling through job boards, LinkedIn, and direct company websites, and honestly the hit rate was demoralising. Pearson was one of those rare cases where applying through the company website felt worthwhile. The role description was specific enough that I could tell a real hiring manager had written it instead of copy-pasting from a template. Six interviews over 49 days. That's a long stretch when you're mid-search and trying to keep your momentum up. There was an initial screen, a technical take-home, two panel rounds with the data team, a stakeholder interview with someone from the commercial side, and a final conversation with the hiring manager. Each stage felt substantive rather than performative, which at least made the wait easier to justify. By the end I was genuinely excited about the work. They had a messy, interesting data infrastructure problem and actual budget to fix it. When the offer came through at £55k I wasn't surprised it sat on the lower end. The role was posted as Junior. But the work they were describing mapped ↓