Lead Applied Data Scientist - Search Ranking (applied ML, LLMs, NLP)

Target•Brooklyn Park, MN

5d•$132,000 - $286,000•Hybrid

About The Position

The Search and Browse Applied Data Sciences team builds the core relevance engine and Data Science products that power Target’s Digital experience. As a Lead Data Scientist on this product – 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 Data Science systems and services at scale. You’ll also architect Data Science solutions that capture, process and mine huge datasets in the retail industry. We’ll also promote innovative thinking as well as the opportunity to use cutting-edge machine learning algorithms and NLP techniques to improve our Mobile and Web Search systems!

Requirements

PhD or MS in Computer Science, Applied Mathematics, Statistics, Physics or equivalent work or industry experience
Research or industry experiences in search indexing, information retrieval or ranking
Demonstrated experience in NLP, LLMs, agentic systems or recommendation systems at scale
5+ years of experience in deploying machine learning algorithms into production environments with good ML Ops experience
Proficient in Python or Java with excellent coding and problem-solving skills
Exceptional hands-on modeling skills using Python
Extensive experience implementing and integrating ML models in production in high traffic/scale
Experience querying large databases with SQL, HQL, or some variation
Exceptional interpersonal and communication skills for partnering with global teams
Self-driven and results-oriented, with strong ownership, sound judgment and the ability to move quickly while maintaining high technical standard
Collaborative team player with a commitment to continuous learning, knowledge sharing, and building reliable AI systems that create business value

Responsibilities

Develop and deploy scalable deep learning models to improve the search experience of guests
Use LLM and agentic technologies to improve ecommerce search experience
Architect and implement large-scale AI systems using test-driven development practices
Build NLP technology for query and document analysis, processing, and understanding
Create data pipelines for feature/label extraction and generation
Conduct data analysis to identify opportunities and improve models
Conduct research to advance the state-of-the-art ML, LLM, and NLP technologies
Contributing to the operations/building of AI pipelines
Adopting Target's infrastructural platforms and operationalize tools and systems around them
Mentor and partner with other engineers to develop software that meets business needs
Collaborate effectively with product and business partners to define and scope solutions
Follow agile methodology for software development and technical documentation
Innovate constantly and keep systems up to date with current technologies