Principal, Data Scientist

Walmart•Bentonville, AR

1d•Onsite

About The Position

This Principal-level role is a strategic technical leader within Walmart’s eCommerce Analytics Platform & Engineering team. The Principal Data Scientist will drive the vision, architecture, and implementation of Walmart’s next-generation AI infrastructure, GenAI platforms, and engineering capabilities that power intelligent automation, AI agents, and real-time decisioning at global scale. You will lead the end-to-end design of high-performance AI systems—including model training and serving infrastructure, distributed inference pipelines, data and feature platforms, retrieval/grounding services, and automation frameworks that support safe, reliable, and scalable GenAI across the enterprise. This role requires a rare combination of deep technical expertise, systems design excellence, and the ability to influence engineering, data science, and product teams at the highest levels.

Requirements

Deep experience architecting distributed AI/ML systems, including training clusters, inference serving layers, and retrieval-augmented systems.
Expert-level understanding of large-scale compute, networking, cluster orchestration, cloud infrastructure, and performance engineering.
Hands-on experience building and optimizing: LLM inference systems; Embedding & vector search pipelines; Model serving & batch/streaming inference; Real-time AI agent backends.
Vertex AI (Pipelines, Predictions, Feature Store, Vector Search, Search, Model Registry, Workbench).
Google Cloud AI infrastructure, SDKs, Cloud Build, Artifact Registry, IAM, Cloud Run, Cloud Functions.
BigQuery, Presto, Cloud SQL, Cassandra, MongoDB.
Graph DB technologies such as Neo4j for relationship modeling and knowledge graphbased retrieval.
Strong proficiency in Python and SQL.
Experience building CI/CD systems for AI workloads and cloud-native observability frameworks.
Strong familiarity with ML engineering and model evaluation frameworks.
8–12+ years of experience in AI infrastructure, ML platform engineering, large-scale distributed systems, or cloud-based AI/ML environments.
Demonstrated experience driving enterprise-scale AI strategy, platform architecture, and cross-functional engineering initiatives.
A proven track record enabling AI and automation at scale through strong architectural vision, experimentation, and technical leadership.
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.

Nice To Haves

Graduate degree (MS or PhD) in a quantitative or engineering discipline preferred.
Microsoft Fabric & Microsoft Foundry AI services (preferred).
Experience with Scala, Java, R, or Bash is a plus.
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).
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.
Knowledge of accessibility best practices and joining Walmart to create accessible products and services following Walmart’s accessibility standards and guidelines for supporting an inclusive culture.

Responsibilities

Serve as Walmart’s principal architect for enterprise AI infrastructure, defining patterns for distributed training, vector retrieval systems, LLM inference optimization, and scalable agent backends.
Lead design of GenAI platform components, including: Orchestration and lifecycle management for LLMs and multimodal models; Retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) pipelines; Vector search and embedding pipelines; Model serving, autoscaling, and high-availability inference systems.
Architect end-to-end platforms using Vertex AI, Google Cloud AI infrastructure, and Azure AI services where applicable.
Build and evolve core GenAI platform capabilities used across eCommerce Analytics: Agent orchestration and backend frameworks; Tool/action routing services; System prompts, grounding, and context management; Observability, evaluation, safety, and feedback loops.
Partner with product engineering teams to integrate GenAI solutions into productionfacing commerce, analytics, and automation experiences.
Lead strategic evaluations of emerging AI technologies and drive their adoption across Walmart’s AI ecosystem.
Architect and optimize high-scale data and inference pipelines running on Dataproc, Kubernetes, Airflow, and cloud-native distributed systems.
Improve performance of AI workloads through advanced techniques: Parallelized preprocessing & feature generation; Distributed training optimization; Token-level and batch-level inference acceleration; Memory and compute efficiency strategies for LLMs.
Lead operational excellence across AI systems including monitoring, incident response, load forecasting, and automated self-healing.
Define engineering standards for AI observability, versioning, deployment, model telemetry, and responsible AI integrations.
Mentor senior-level data scientists and engineers on best practices in AI infrastructure, scalable ML engineering, and GenAI systems design.
Provide domain expertise to help shape Walmart’s enterprise-wide strategies for AI adoption, AI governance, and future-facing platform technology.

Benefits

Competitive pay
Performance-based bonus awards
Medical, vision and dental coverage
401(k)
Stock purchase
Company-paid life insurance
PTO (including sick leave)
Parental leave
Family care leave
Bereavement
Jury duty
Voting
Short-term and long-term disability
Company discounts
Military Leave Pay
Adoption and surrogacy expense reimbursement
Live Better U is a Walmart-paid education benefit program for full-time and part-time associates in Walmart and Sam's Club facilities. Programs range from high school completion to bachelor's degrees, including English Language Learning and short-form certificates. Tuition, books, and fees are completely paid for by Walmart.