Data Scientist

KEYENCE CORPORATION OF AMERICA • Chicago, IL

6d • Onsite

About The Position

KEYENCE is hiring a Data Scientist at its U.S. Headquarters in Itasca, Illinois. The role spans business analysis, AI agent creation, automation, tool building, and machine learning. The Data Scientist determines the appropriate solution for ambiguous business problems—whether analysis, automation, an AI agent, a data product, or a machine learning model—and builds and deploys practical solutions end to end. The role partners with internal stakeholders to define problems and deliver useful solutions, and owns work from initial idea through deployment, adoption, and ongoing support.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in a quantitative field such as Computer Science, Data Science, Statistics, Mathematics, or Engineering, or a similar field.
• 1–2 years of experience building and deploying data, automation, or AI solutions in a production setting.
• Strong Python and SQL skills, with a track record of shipping practical data or AI solutions beyond prototypes.
• Experience automating business or technical processes and integrating APIs and multiple data sources.
• Software development fundamentals, including modular code, version control, testing, and documentation.
• Data analysis and visualization skills, with the ability to communicate clearly to technical and nontechnical audiences.
• Ability to work independently in ambiguous environments and balance speed with reliability.
• Pragmatic problem-solving ability, including knowing when rules-based automation is more suitable than an ML model or LLM.
• Experience with LLM and AI agent development, including prompt design, tool calling, RAG, embeddings, and agent evaluation.

Nice To Haves

• Experience with workflow orchestration tools such as Airflow, Prefect, or Power Automate; Docker; CI/CD; and cloud deployment.
• Experience building internal web tools with FastAPI or Streamlit.
• Experience with process improvement or operational excellence.

Responsibilities

• Partner with internal stakeholders to translate vague requests into well-defined problems and high-value solutions.
• Design, build, and deploy automations, AI-enabled tools, internal apps, and analytical solutions.
• Develop AI agents and LLM-powered workflows with appropriate guardrails, evaluation, and observability.
• Perform exploratory and statistical analysis, design experiments, and communicate findings clearly.
• Build reliable data pipelines and reusable tools using sound engineering practices, including Git, testing, documentation, and CI/CD.
• Own solutions from idea through deployment, adoption, and ongoing support.

Benefits

• Medical, dental, and vision benefits.
• 401(k) match.
• Approximately four weeks of PTO in the first full year.
• Performance-based annual bonus target of $45,962, paid quarterly.
• Career growth through a promote-from-within culture, with base and bonus increases.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Entry Level