Lead Data Scientist

JOIN TARGET AS A LEAD DATA SCIENTIST – Search & Browse

About us:

Target is an iconic brand, a Fortune 50 company, and one of America’s leading retailers. Target as a tech and data company? Absolutely!  We’re the behind-the-scenes powerhouse that fuels Target’s passion and commitment to cutting-edge innovation.  We anchor every facet of one of the world’s best-loved retailers with a strong technology framework that relies on the latest tools and technologies—and the brightest people—to deliver incredible value to guests online and in stores.  Target’s Tech and Data Sciences teams are on a mission to offer the systems, tools, and support that guests and team members need and deserve.  Our high-performing teams balance independence with collaboration and we pride ourselves on being versatile, agile, and creative.  We drive industry-leading technologies in support of every angle of the business and help ensure that Target operates smoothly, securely, and reliably from the inside out.

About the role:

The Search and Browse Data Science team builds the core relevance engine and Data Science products that power Target’s digital experience.  As a Sr Data Scientist on this product – you’ll work with business partners to provide solutions for business problems in a fast-paced and global environment.  You’ll have the opportunity to design quality, flexible and performant Data Science systems and services at scale.  You’ll also architect Data Science solutions that capture, process and mine huge datasets in the retail industry.  We’ll also promote innovative thinking as well as the opportunity to utilize cutting-edge machine learning algorithms and NLP techniques to improve our Mobile and Web Search systems at Target!

In this role at Target as a Lead Data Scientist, you’ll: 

• Develop and deploy scalable deep learning models to improve the search experience of Target guests

• Architect and implement large-scale AI systems using test-driven development practices

• Build NLP technology for query and document analysis, processing, and understanding

• Create data pipelines for feature/label extraction and generation

• Conduct data analysis to identify opportunities and improve models

• Conduct research to advance the state-of-the-art machine learning and NLP technologies

• Contributing to the operations/building of AI pipelines

• Adopting Target's infrastructural platforms and operationalize tools and systems around them

• Mentor and partner with other engineers to develop software that meets business needs

• Follow agile methodology for software development and technical documentation

• Innovate constantly and keep systems up to date with current technologies

What we're looking for: 

• MS or Ph.D. degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Mathematics, or related field

• Research or industrial experiences in relevant fields, such as information retrieval, machine learning, NLP, or recommendation systems

• 8+ years of experience in deploying machine learning algorithms into production environments.

• Proficient in Python or Java with Strong coding and problem-solving skills

• Solid modeling skills in Python

• Good understanding of search indexing, retrieval, and ranking

• Extensive experience in implementing and integrating ML models in production with high traffic

• Experience querying large databases with SQL, HQL, or some variations

• Experience with Semantic Search is a plus.

• Experience in Tuning LLMs is plus.

• Proven track record of achieving significant engineering or academic results.

• Excellent interpersonal and communication skills to work with global teams

Bonus Points:

• PhD in Computer Science, Mathematics, Statistics, Physics or related quantitative field

• Proven track record of achieving significant engineering (applied ML) or academic research

• Experience with vector DBs and LLMs, RAG.

Why grow your career with Target Data Sciences?  

• You will work directly on the data science problems that have the most impact on Target's entire supply chain, forecasting and merchandising teams. 

• We value diversity. We believe that diversity and inclusion is of core importance when we try to create positive in-store experiences for our guests, and we think it is also critically important when building our teams. Read more about our commitment to diversity and inclusion  

• We love open source! Many of our team members contribute to open source communities and get to do it during work time. We try to contribute back to our communities where we can and are grateful to be able to open source some of our own projects!  

• We value our team members for who they are, not just what they can get done. We treat our team members like people, not like cogs in a machine. We are parents, hobbyists, enthusiasts, family members, and community members, and can offer flexibility to our team members' schedules and work arrangements so that they can flourish both inside and outside of work.

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