PRINCIPAL, DATA SCIENTIST

Job Description

Position Summary... About Team The Conversational AI team at Walmart builds and deploys core AI assistant experiences across Walmart. The team builds the core AI platform, which powers multiple conversational assistants for shopping, customer care and employee assistance across Walmart s US and International markets. With tens of millions of active users across multiple countries these are among the largest vertical AI assistant experiences in the industry. The team is part of a larger Emerging Tech org, which is focussed on utilising emerging technologies like Conversational AI, Extended Reality, Spatial awareness, etc to reimagine and build intuitive and immersive experiences for our customers, sellers and associates. We are looking for a Principal data scientist to lead the next evolution of the AI assistant platform by defining and building highly scalable Generative AI systems and infrastructure. This will be a hands-on technical leadership role which requires expertise at the intersection of machine learning, LLMs, ASR, large-scale distributed systems, and more. Our AI assistants are rapidly incorporating LLMs, agent-based architecture with custom fine-tuned models, and multiple data modalities. About Team The Conversational AI team at Walmart builds and deploys core AI assistant experiences across Walmart. The team builds the core AI platform , which powers multiple conversational assistants for shopping, customer care and employee assistan ce across Walmart s US and International markets . With tens of millions of active users across multiple countries these are among the largest vertical AI assistant experiences in the industry. The team is part of a larger Emerging Tech org , which is f ocused on utilizing emerging technologies like Conversational AI, Extended Realit y, Spatial awareness, etc. to reimagine and build intuitive and immersive experiences for our customers, sellers and associates. We are looking for a Principal data scientist to lead the next evolution of the AI assistant platform by defining and building highly scalable Generative AI systems and infrastructure. This will be a hands-on technical leadership role which requires expertise at the intersection of machine learning, LLMs, ASR , large-scale distributed systems, and more. Our AI assistants are rapidly incorporating LLMs , agent-based architecture with custom fine-tuned models , and multiple data modalities. What You Will Do In this role, as a principal data scien tist you will own the technical roadmap and architecture for multiple initiatives wit hin the Conversational AI platform. The responsibilities include: Partner with key business stakeholders and be a thought leader in the Conversational AI space for driving the development and planning of POCs and production AI s olution s . Translate business requirements into strategies, initiatives, and projects. Align these with business strategy and objectives . Drive the execution of the deliverables. Design, build, test and deploy cutting edge AI solutions at scale, impacting millions of customers worldwide. Lead multiple initiatives within the platform, with focus on efficiency , innovation, and leverage. Collaborate with the applied scientists, ML engineers, software engineers and product managers to develop next generation of AI assistant experiences. Be up-to date on industry trends in the latest G enerative AI , Speech processing and AI assistant architect ur e patterns ( e . g . agent chaining, COT, RAG, LLM guardrails etc) Provide technical leadership, guidance and mentorship to highly skilled and motivated data scientists in the team. Lead innovation and efficiency through the complete problem - solving cycle , from approach to methods to development and results. Partner and engage with associates in other regions for delivering the best services to customers around the globe . Proactively participate in the external community to strengthen Walmarts brand and gain insights into industry practices. Drive innovation in the charter and publish research in Rank A+ AI conferences like ICML, AAAI, NIPS, ACL, etc. What You Will Bring Masters with 12 + years or Ph.D. with 10 + years of relevant experience. Educational qualifications should be Computer Science/Statistics/Mathematics or related area. Strong track record in a data science tech lead role (5+ years), with deployment of large-scale AI services. Extensive experience in the design, development, and delivery of AI products with a large customer base, preferably in c onversational AI, speech, vision or machine learning based systems. Strong experience in machine learning: Gen AI, NLP, Speech processing, Image processing, Classification models, regression models, Forecasting, Unsupervised models, Optimization, Graph ML, Causal inference, Causal ML, Statistical Learning, experimentation & Gen-AI. Deep and demonstrated personal interest in generative AI space including awareness of latest architectural advancements in building generative AI applications. Excellent decision-making skills with the ability to balance conflicting interests in a complex and fast-paced environment. Deep experience in simultaneously leading multiple data science initiatives end to end - from translating business needs to analytical asks, leading the process of building solutions and the eventual act of deployment and maintenance . Thorough understanding of distributed technologies, public cloud technologies, scalable platforms, ML- platforms and Operational Excellence. Experience working with geographically distributed teams. Business acumen; combining technical vision with business insights. R esearch acumen ; with papers published in top tier AI conferences like AAAI, NIPS, ICML, KDD, etc. Strong Experience with big data platforms - Hadoop (Hive, Map Reduce, HQL, Scala) . Strong Experience in Python. About Walmart Global Tech . . Flexible, hybrid work . Benefits . Belonging . . Minimum Qualifications... Minimum Qualifications:Option 1: Bachelors degree in Statistics, Economics, Analytics, Mathematics, Computer Science, Information Technology or related field and 5 years experience in an analytics related field. Option 2: Masters degree in Statistics, Economics, Analytics, Mathematics, Computer Science, Information Technology or related field and 3 years experience in an analytics related field. Option 3: 7 years experience in an analytics or related field. Preferred Qualifications... Primary Location...