Principal Data Scientist

About Team

The data science team at Walmart Global Tech focuses on using the latest in machine learning, statistics, software engineering and optimization to solve business problems. We mine data, distill insights, extract information, build analytical models, deploy Machine Learning algorithms, and use the latest algorithms and technology to empower business decision-making. In addition, we work with engineers to build reference architectures and machine learning pipelines in a big data ecosystem to productize our solutions. Advanced analytical algorithms driven by our team will help Walmart to optimize business operations, business practices and change the way our customers shop.

The data science community at Walmart Global Tech is active in most of the Hack events, utilizing the petabytes of data at our disposal, to build some of the coolest ideas. All the work we do at Walmart Labs will eventually benefit our operations & our associates, helping Customers Save Money to Live Better.

Your Opportunity

As a Principal Data Scientist, in the Sourcing data science team, you'll have the opportunity to -

• Drive innovative strategic solutions in the domain of sourcing utilizing advanced SOTA AI and ML solutions at large scale and at accelerated pace.
• Drive data-derived insights across a wide range of retail divisions by developing advanced statistical models, machine learning algorithms and computational algorithms based on business initiatives
• Work closely with Directors, Sr. Managers of Data Science, and leaders of Architecture, Engineering, Product & business teams to drive the Organizational strategy around Sourcing.
• Direct the gathering of data, assess data validity and synthesize data into large analytics datasets to support project goals
• Utilize big data analytics and advanced data science techniques to identify trends, patterns, and discrepancies in data. Determine additional data needed to support insights
• Build and train AI/ML models for replication for future projects
• Deploy and maintain the data science solutions
• Communicate recommendations to business partners and influence future plans based on insights

What You Will Do

• Design large-scale AI/ML products/systems impacting millions of customers •
• Develop highly scalable, timely, highly-performant, instrumented, and accurate data pipelines
• Identify, develop, and deliver improvements in data performance, data quality, and cost, which need to be monitored and analyzed
• Drive and ensure that MLOps practices are being followed in solutions
• Enable data governance practices and processes by being a passionate adopter and ambassador
• Drive data pipeline efficiency, data quality, efficient feature engineering, maintainence of different DBs (like Vector DBs, Graph DBs, feature stores, caching mechanism)
• Lead and inspire a team of scientists and engineers solving AI/ML problems through R&D while pushing the state-of-the-art
• Lead the team to develop production-level code for the implementation of AI/ML solutions using best practices to handle high-scale and low-latency requirements
• Deploy batch and real-time ML solutions, model results consumption and integration pipelines,
• Work with the customer-centric mindset to deliver high-quality business-driven analytic solutions.
• Drive proactive optimization of code and deployments, improving efficiency, cost and resource optimization.
• Design model architecture, optimal Tech stack and model choices, integration with larger engineering ecosystem, drive best-practices of model integrations working closely with Software Engineering leaders
• Consult with business stakeholders regarding algorithm-based recommendations and be a thought-leader to deploy these & drive business actions.
• Closely partners with the Senior Managers & Director of Data Science, Engineering and product counterparts to drive data science adoption in the domain
• Collaborate with multiple stakeholders to drive innovation at scale
• Build a strong external presence by publishing your team's work in top-tier AI/ML conferences and developing partnerships with academic institutions
• Adhere to Walmart's policies, procedures, mission, values, standards of ethics and integrity
• Adopt Walmart's quality standards, develop/recommend process standards and best practices across the retail industry

What You Will Bring

• Master's with > 13 years OR Ph.D. with > 10 years of relevant experience. Education qualifications should be Computer Science/Statistics/Mathematics or a related area.
• Ability to lead the data science projects end to end.
• Experience in analyzing complex problems and translating them into analytical solutions.
• Experience in machine learning: Classification models, regression models, Data/Text Mining, Convex Optimization, Text Retrieval Algorithms
• Experience in statistical learning: Generalize linear model, Time Series, Dynamic/Causal Model, Statistical Learning
• Experience in LLMs, VLMs, embedding generation from multimodal data, storage and retrieval from Vector Databases, set-up and provisioning of managed LLM gateways, development of Retrieval augmented generation based LLM agents, model selection, iterative prompt engineering and finetuning based on accuracy and user-feedback, monitoring and governance.
• Ability to utilize the data science solutions outcomes to drive the predictive and prescriptive analytics.
• Experience with big data analytics - identifying trends, patterns, and outliers in large volumes of data
• Ability to scale and deploy the data science solutions.
• Strong Experience with one or more of Python and R.
• Experience in GCP/Azure
• Experience in deep learning and worked in TensorFlow/Torch
• Experience with GPU/CUDA for computational efficiency

Additional Preferred Qualifications:

• Domain Knowledge of Sourcing in retail, experience in use cases like risk scoring for surety of supply, AI powered contextual search within contracts, creating commodity cost profiles using ML and GenAI techniques.
• Published papers or given talks in leading academic and research journals
• Published papers or given talks in Data Science Forums
• Hold data science related patents

About Walmart Global Tech

Imagine working in an environment where one line of code can make life easier for hundreds of millions of people. That’s what we do at Walmart Global Tech. We’re a team of software engineers, data scientists, cybersecurity expert's and service professionals within the world’s leading retailer who make an epic impact and are at the forefront of the next retail disruption. People are why we innovate, and people power our innovations. We are people-led and tech-empowered.

We train our team in the skillsets of the future and bring in experts like you to help us grow. We have roles for those chasing their first opportunity as well as those looking for the opportunity that will define their career. Here, you can kickstart a great career in tech, gain new skills and experience for virtually every industry, or leverage your expertise to innovate at scale, impact millions and reimagine the future of retail.

Flexible, hybrid work

We use a hybrid way of working with primary in office presence coupled with an optimal mix of virtual presence. We use our campuses to collaborate and be together in person, as business needs require and for development and networking opportunities. This approach helps us make quicker decisions, remove location barriers across our global team, be more flexible in our personal lives.

Benefits

Beyond our great compensation package, you can receive incentive awards for your performance. Other great perks include a host of best-in-class benefits maternity and parental leave, PTO, health benefits, and much more.

Belonging

We aim to create a culture where every associate feels valued for who they are, rooted in respect for the individual. Our goal is to foster a sense of belonging, to create opportunities for all our associates, customers and suppliers, and to be a Walmart for everyone.

At Walmart, our vision is "everyone included." By fostering a workplace culture where everyone is—and feels—included, everyone wins. Our associates and customers reflect the makeup of all 19 countries where we operate. By making Walmart a welcoming place where all people feel like they belong, we’re able to engage associates, strengthen our business, improve our ability to serve customers, and support the communities where we operate.

Equal Opportunity Employer

Walmart, Inc., is an Equal Opportunities Employer – By Choice. We believe we are best equipped to help our associates, customers and the communities we serve live better when we really know them. That means understanding, respecting and valuing unique styles, experiences, identities, ideas and opinions – while being inclusive of all people.