Director Data Sciences - Advanced Machine Learning

Key Skills

Deep Learning, Effective communication skills, Large Language Models - LLMs, Machine learning techniques, Natural Language Processing (NLP), Neural Networks

Job Description

About the role:

This role is to be one of the leaders in Target’s Advanced Machine Learning team which uses AI to power multiple applications. 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 AI systems and services at scale. You will work with Product, Tech and Business Partners to define product roadmaps that fit in our ecosystem and solve retail challenges at scale. You will build consensus and communicate with senior level leadership. You will drive the creation of new standards and best practices with a focus on emerging technologies and author various project related documents, vision statements and roadmap.

Our Advanced Machine Learning team oversees the development of state-of-the-art ML models for computer vision, generative AI and other techniques to solve important problems across Target. As the Data Science leader in AML, you will have the opportunity to create the vision for & drive the adoption of state-of-the-art ML models that inform multiple areas of the business. This is a great opportunity for leaders with a passion for creating value by leveraging science to improve organizational decisional making.

As a Director of Data Science at Target you will be the technical leader of a team that will design, develop, deploy and maintain Machine learning models and algorithms for our retail business. You’ll work closely with Product, Engineering and business partners to define product roadmaps that fit in our ecosystem and solve retail challenges at scale. You will build consensus and communicate with senior level leadership. You will drive the creation of new standards and best practices with a focus on emerging technologies and author various project related documents, vision statements and roadmap.

You will develop and lead a world-class team providing development, coaching, motivation, support and feedback to team members. You’ll also create an atmosphere of teamwork and collaboration, inclusion, communicating day-to-day decisions, priorities and relevant project information. You’ll manage resource allocation as well as define and communicate overall vision and goals for the team.

In this role as Director of Data Sciences – Advanced Machine Learning, you will:

• Develop a strong understanding of business and operational processes within Target’s business areas
• Develop an in-depth understanding of the various systems and processes that influence Digital order fulfillment speed & costs. Identify opportunities to drive efficiencies through enhanced decision models.
• Lead a team that writes code for mathematical and statistical models. Develop modular framework and drive adoption of good software development/engineering practices to build large scale ML models
• Build scalable ML models/services using advanced ML techniques such as neural networks, gradient boosting trees and other supervised and unsupervised machine learning techniques with special emphasis on computer vision models and generative AI techniques.
• Dynamically redesign projects as business scope changes while testing innovative ideas for out-of-box solutions.
• Collaborate with the Product and Technology teams to advance our technical capabilities in developing and deploying models.
• Define financial and analytic metrics to measure complicated predictive model outcomes and produce performance reports.
• Lead a high-performance team of Data Scientists and be comfortable conducting design and code reviews, to solve complex business problems in digital fulfilment space.
• Communicate insights and recommendations to senior leaders, helping to drive business decisions and strategy.
• Promote a culture of algorithmic decision-making across the organization, encouraging stakeholders to incorporate data insights into their decision-making processes.
• Continually add new capabilities and features to the models and implement model governance strategies to reflect the complexities of an evolving digital fulfillment network
• Partner with business users and engineering teams to design, deploy, and drive adoption for the algorithms and ML models developed by your team.

Requirements:

• MS/PhD in Mathematics, Statistics, Operations Research, Industrial Engineering, Physics, Computer Science or equivalent work/industry experience
• 8-10 years’ experience in modeling and algorithms
• 5+ years managing/leading, career development and mentoring ML teams
• Significant expertise in algorithm design, linear algebra, statistics, Markov decision processes etc.
• Hands on experience developing advanced ML models using classification and regression techniques, Neural networks, NLP, Time series forecasting etc on high dimensional data
• Experience deploying models with large-scale business impact in commercial setting
• Demonstrated experience in strategic and cross-functional leadership, planning and execution
• Deep understanding of data structures and algorithms
• Highly proficient in data science stack and ecosystem
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills. Ability to clearly tell data driven stories through appropriate visualizations, graphs and narratives
• Hand on experience in ML Algorithm Design and Large-Scale systems design as well as Deep Learning frameworks like: Transformers, Graph Neural Networks, etc.
• Experience deploying models with large-scale business impact in commercial setting
• Ability to convert a Business problem to Machine Learning solutions
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills. Ability to clearly tell data
• driven stories through appropriate visualizations, graphs and narratives
• Experience is Large Language Models (LLMs) fine tuning a plus

Why work with us at Target

• You will work directly on data science problems that have the most impact on Target's entire digital/.com, mobile, supply chain, forecasting and merchandising teams.
• 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 diversity. We believe that diversity and inclusion is of core importance when 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 value our team members for who they are, not just what they can get done. We treat out 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.