Sr Data Scientist

Target is an iconic brand, a Fortune 50 company, and one of America’s leading retailers. Global Supply Chain and Logistics at Target is evolving at an incredible pace. We are constantly reimagining how we get the right product to guests faster, better, and more cost-effectively across 1,900 locations.

A role with the Data Science team means building scalable data science products to support the ever-changing supply chain landscape. This involves making smarter, automated, and algorithmic decisions. Evaluating product flow from vendor to distribution center and stores across the first mile, middle mile, and last mile, with a focus on inventory modeling and replenishment, to improve operating efficiencies both within the distribution center and across the network.

We are looking for exceptional people who are proactive, creative, independent, innovative, and comfortable working in varying degrees of ambiguity. Are you a creative problem-solver who seeks root causes, simplifies problems, quickly identifies solutions, commits to a plan, and positively influences others to execute it? If so, you will thrive on this dynamic team.

About the Role:

Our Supply Chain Data Science team oversees the development of state-of-the-art mathematical techniques to solve key problems for Target’s Supply Chain, such as identifying optimal inventory quantities and positioning across multiple channels and locations, planning the right mix of inventory investments versus guest experience, digital order fulfillment planning, transportation resource planning, and more.

As a Senior Data Scientist, you will collaborate with Product, Tech, and business partners to solve retail challenges at scale for our supply chain network. You will design, develop, deploy, and maintain data science models and tools. You’ll work closely with applied data scientists, data analysts, and business partners to continuously learn and address evolving business needs. You’ll also collaborate with engineers and data scientists on peer teams to build and productionize supply chain solutions.

Responsibilities:

• Develop a strong understanding of business and operational processes within Target’s Supply Chain.

• Gain an in-depth understanding of systems and processes influencing supply chain efficiency.

• Analyze large datasets to derive insights for business process improvements and solution development.

• Develop optimization-based solutions, mathematical models (probabilistic/deterministic models), predictive models, and implement them in real-world production systems with measurable impact.

• Collaborate with the team to build and maintain complex software systems and tools.

• Add new capabilities and features to the simulation framework to reflect the complexities of an evolving supply chain network.

• Develop and deploy modules to run simulations for testing and validating multiple scenarios to evaluate the impact of various inventory purchasing and management strategies.

• Enhance and maintain the simulation environment to enable testing/deploying new features for running custom scenarios.

• Coordinate the analysis, troubleshooting, and resolution of issues in models and software.
   

Requirements:

• Bachelor's/MS/PhD in Mathematics, Statistics, Operations Research, Industrial Engineering, Physics, Computer Science, or related fields.

• 3-4+ years of relevant experience.

• Experience in applying Operations Research to solve complex problems in Supply chain or related domain.

• Strong analytical thinking and data visualization skills. Ability to creatively solve business problems and innovate new approaches.

• Experience cleaning, transforming, and analyzing large datasets for insights leading to business improvements. Supply chain data experience preferred but not required.

• Experience developing, testing, and maintaining large codebases in a collaborative environment while meeting industry best practices.

• Proficiency in Python, SQL, Hadoop/Hive, Spark.

• Strong experience in JVM-based languages like Java or Kotlin preferred.

• Knowledge of mathematical and statistical concepts, optimization, data structures, algorithms, data analysis, simulations, and visualizations applied to business problems.

• Good working knowledge of machine learning, probability estimation methods, linear programming (integer, real, and mixed integer), stochastic processes, and their applications.

• Experience deploying solutions with large-scale business impact.

• Self-driven and results-oriented, with the ability to meet tight timelines.

• Strong team player with the ability to collaborate across geographies/time zones.

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
   

Why Work with Us at Target?

• Work directly on data science problems with the most impact on Target's entire supply chain, forecasting, and merchandising teams.

• We love open-source! Many of our team members contribute to open-source communities during work hours, and we try to contribute back where we can.

• We value diversity and inclusion in our teams and believe it’s key to creating positive in-store experiences for our guests.

• We offer flexibility to team members' schedules and work arrangements, enabling them to flourish both inside and outside of work.