Principal, Data Scientist | Search Team | Sunnyvale - Walmart

Immigration Sponsorship is not available for this role & location.

Walmart Global Tech is looking to hire a seasoned Principal Data Scientist for their Search team in Sunnyvale. We are a highly motivated group of GenAI/LLM, Machine Learning, Deep Learning, Natural Language Processing scientists and engineers working on solving sophisticated and high impactful problems on Walmart Search. We are building smart data systems that ingest, model, and analyze massive flow of data from online and offline user activity. We use cutting edge machine learning, deep learning, reinforcement learning, natural language understanding and optimization algorithms on search relevance, intent understanding, ranking and conversion optimization.

In this role, you will be technical lead in building the next generation of search and discovery with LLMs that helps users find the products with better match and higher efficiency.

About Team:

The Search Algorithms team at Walmart is dedicated to the mission of helping millions of customers every day in finding the right products they need to run their households, for their kids’ school, or want for their favorite activities or hobbies in an omnichannel setup. We are at the forefront of tackling one of the most complex problems in e-commerce at scale. Whenever a user types in a query or browses through product categories on the web site, smart phone app or the iPad, our services and algorithms kick in. We learn from billions of search queries and hundreds of millions of products, to find the most relevant products for our customers while making their experience seamless, efficient, and showcasing the breadth of our growing marketplace of products.

What you'll do:

• Working with product managers and business teams to understand the business problems, formulate data driven and ML/NLP based solutions for improving ranking on Search.
• Demonstrating up-to-date expertise in Machine Learning, NLP and Deep Learning, and apply that towards development, experimentation, and improvement in the Algorithms powering and Search experiences on Walmart.
• Mentor and guide junior Machine Learning/NLP Scientists and Engineers in the team on technical aspects of ongoing projects and initiate future projects.
• Staying current on published NLP, machine learning and modeling techniques competing technologies and sharing these findings with scientists and engineers in the organization.
• Maintaining world-class academic credentials through publications, presentations, external collaborations, and service to the research community.

What you'll bring:

• You have a Ph.D. with 5+ years of experience, or a Masters Degree with 10+ years of experience, in a Computational Science discipline with an emphasis on Machine Learning or Data Mining.
• You are experienced with GenAI/LLM, such as LLM fine-tuning, agenting, RAG, chatbot, etc.
• You’re experienced with natural language processing techniques or information retrieval, such as Name Entity Recognition, Classification, Deep Learning, Machine Translation, Learning to ranking, etc.
• You have strong hands-on development experience with at least one programming language (Python or Java preferred).
• You have expertise in sourcing, cleaning, manipulating, and analyzing large volumes of data using distributed computing platforms.
• You have experience working on ranking, online advertising, recommender systems, ecommerce or relevant areas.
• You’re experienced with end-to-end modeling projects emerging from research efforts.
• You have an excellent industrial or academic track record of proposing, conducting, and reporting results of original research, plus collaborative research with publications.

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 experts 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 that is primarily in office coupled with virtual when not onsite. Our campuses serve as a hub to enhance collaboration, bring us together for purpose and deliver on business needs. This approach helps us make quicker decisions, remove location barriers across our global team and 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 401(k) match, stock purchase plan, paid maternity and parental leave, PTO, multiple health plans, and much more.

Equal Opportunity Employer:
Walmart, Inc. is an Equal Opportunity 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 diversity- unique styles, experiences, identities, ideas and opinions – while being inclusive of all people.

The above information has been designed to indicate the general nature and level of work performed in the role. It is not designed to contain or be interpreted as a comprehensive inventory of all responsibilities and qualifications required of employees assigned to this job. The full Job Description can be made available as part of the hiring process.

The annual salary range for this position is $143,000.00-$286,000.00. Additional compensation includes annual or quarterly performance bonuses.

Minimum Qualifications...

Outlined below are the required minimum qualifications for this position. If none are listed, there are no minimum qualifications.

• Option 1: Bachelors degree in Statistics, Economics, Analytics, Mathematics, Computer Science, Information Technology or related field and 5 years' experience in an analytics related field.
• Option 2: Masters degree in Statistics, Economics, Analytics, Mathematics, Computer Science, Information Technology or related field and 3 years' experience in an analytics related field.
• Option 3: 7 years' experience in an analytics or related field.

Preferred Qualifications...

Outlined below are the optional preferred qualifications for this position. If none are listed, there are no preferred qualifications.

• Data science, machine learning, optimization models, PhD in Machine Learning, Computer Science, Information Technology, Operations Research, Statistics, Applied Mathematics, Econometrics, Publications or active peer reviewer in related journals or conference.
• Successful completion of one or more assessments in Python, Spark, Scala, or R.
• Using open source frameworks (for example, scikit learn, tensorflow, torch).
• We value candidates with a background in creating inclusive digital experiences, demonstrating knowledge in implementing Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 AA standards, assistive technologies, and integrating digital accessibility seamlessly.
• The ideal candidate would have knowledge of accessibility best practices and join us as we continue to create accessible products and services following Walmart’s accessibility standards and guidelines for supporting an inclusive culture.

Primary Location...
840 W California Ave, Sunnyvale, CA 94086-4828, United States of America