Lead Data Scientist

About Us 

As a Fortune 50 company with more than 400,000 team members worldwide, Target is an iconic brand and one of America's leading retailers. 

Joining Target means promoting a culture of mutual care and respect and striving to make the most meaningful and positive impact. Becoming a Target team member means joining a community that values different voices and lifts each other up. Here, we believe your unique perspective is important, and you'll build relationships by being authentic and respectful. 

Overview about TII  

At Target, we have a timeless purpose and a proven strategy. And that hasn’t happened by accident. Some of the best minds from different backgrounds come together at Target to redefine retail in an inclusive learning environment that values people and delivers world-class outcomes. That winning formula is especially apparent in Bengaluru, where Target in India operates as a fully integrated part of Target’s global team and has more than 4,000 team members supporting the company’s global strategy and operations. 

Pyramid Overview 

As a Lead Data Scientist in Data Sciences, you will play crucial role in designing, implementing, and optimizing the AI solutions in production. Additionally, you’ll apply best practices in software design, participate in code reviews, create a maintainable well-tested codebase with relevant documentation. We will look to you to understand and actively follow foundational programming principles (best practices, know about unit tests, code organization, basics of CI/CD etc.) and create a well-maintainable & tested codebase with relevant documentation. You will get the opportunity to develop in one or more approved programming languages (Java, Scala, Python, R), and learn and adhere to best practices in data analysis and data understanding. 

Team Overview 

The Content Creation team within Data Sciences will help build AI solutions leveraging, GenAI, computer vision and traditional ML models for various marketing or site content use-cases. The team will play a crucial role in helping Target drive relevancy with guests. 

​​Position Overview 

As a Lead Data Scientist, you’ll influence by interacting with the Data Sciences team, Product teams, Scientist/Engineer individual contributors from other pillars, and business partners. You will perform within the scale and scope of your role by defining solutions and beginning to identify problems to solve and contribute to Data Sciences’ and Target’s culture by modeling and contributing to the culture. You’ll get the opportunity to use your expertise in one or more of the following areas: machine learning, probability theory & statistics, optimization theory, Simulation, Econometrics, Deep Learning, Natural Language processing or computer vision. We will look to you to own design and implementation of an algorithmic solution (e.g., recommendation or forecasting algorithm), including data understanding, feature engineering, model development, validation and testing, and deployment to a production environment. 

You’ll drive development of problem statements that capture the business considerations, define metrics/measurement to validate model performance, and drive feasibility study with data requirements and potential solutions approaches to be considered. You’ll evaluate tradeoffs of simple vs complex models/solutions in determining the right technique to employ for a business problem and develop and maintain a nuanced understanding of the data generated by the business, including fundamental limitations of the data. You’ll leverage your proficiency in one or more approved programming languages (Java, Scala, Python, R), and ensure foundational programming principles in developing code (best practices, writes unit tests, code organization, basics of CI/CD etc.) are followed in developing the team’s products/models. 

You’ll not only stitch together basic data pipelines for a given problem and own design and implementation of individual components within Data Science/Tech applications, but also articulate the technical strategy, value of technology, and impact on the business. As you do so, you’ll collaborate with engineers, scientists, and business partners/product owners to create algorithmic solutions that are performant and integrated into applications. We’ll look to you to mentor and provide technical support within a team, including mentoring junior team members, and present your work and your team’s work to business partners and other Data Sciences teams. With a deeper understanding of your functional area of responsibility, you’ll support agile ceremonies, collaborate with peers across multiple products, communicate and collaborate with business partners, and demonstrate an understanding of areas outside your scope of responsibility. The exciting part of retail? It’s always changing! 

Core responsibilities of this job are described within this job description. Job duties may change at any time due to business needs. 

About You 

• 4-year degree in Quantitative disciplines (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) 

• Masters in Computer Science, Applied Mathematics, Statistics, Physics or over 6 plus years of relevant industry experience 

• Good knowledge and experience developing optimization, simulation and statistical models 

• Experience in working with image, text data, embeddings, building vision models and leveraging Gen AI tools 

• Strong expertise in Machine Learning frameworks such as TensorFlow, PyTorch or similar libraries; experience with Generative Adversarial Networks or Diffusion Models is desirable 

• Strong hands-on programming skills in Python, SQL, Hadoop/Hive. Additional knowledge of Spark, Scala, R, Java desired but not mandatory 

• Excellent problem-solving skills combined with strong analytical abilities. 

• Excellent communication skills. Ability to clearly tell data driven stories through appropriate visualizations, graphs, and narratives 

• Proven leadership skills with experience mentoring junior scientists effectively 

Know More About Us here: 

• Life at Target- https://india.target.com/ 

• Benefits- https://india.target.com/life-at-target/workplace/benefits 

• Culture- https://india.target.com/life-at-target/belonging