Senior Forecast Analyst, Demand Planning (ML Partner)

PepsiCo • Chicago, IL

8h • Hybrid

About The Position

PepsiCo Beverages North America’s supply chain produces and distributes at massive scale, serving customers through a network of 60+ plants and 400+ distribution centers and moving ~2B cases annually. Our IBP Forecasting Analytics team helps keep service high and inventory optimized by pairing business insight with machine learning driven statistical forecasting.
The role
As a senior individual contributor, you’ll be the day to day bridge between demand planners and our global data science partners. You’ll interpret how our ML models “think,” explain model behavior to non technical stakeholders, and collaborate with data scientists to drive continuous improvement in our forecasting engine. You’ll own your work, run short, self directed projects, and communicate clearly with technical and non technical audiences.

Requirements

• 4+ years in analytics, data science, or supply chain/demand planning analytics (or equivalent practical experience).
• Proficiency with SQL or Python to extract and analyze data within a Databricks or Spark-based environment.
• Demonstrated ability to communicate insights to both technical and non technical stakeholders (written and verbal).
• Demonstrated ability to set direction and drive decisions across multiple stakeholders.

Nice To Haves

• Exposure to time series or forecasting methods (classical or ML)
• Familiarity with forecast evaluation (e.g., MAPE/WAPE/sMAPE, bias) and model explainability basics.
• Experience in demand or supply planning processes or systems (e.g., SAP IBP/APO, Kinaxis, Anaplan, Oracle, o9).
• Project leadership from idea to production (experimentation, validation, rollout) and the ability to challenge requirements to reach best practice.
• Resilience and adaptability in a dynamic environment.

Responsibilities

• Pull, manipulate, and analyze forecasting data to understand how the forecasting engine behaves and identify key drivers of accuracy and bias.
• Distill analytical findings into clear narratives and actionable recommendations for demand planning leadership.
• Translate between business needs and model behavior.
• Partner with data scientists on experiments and model changes; frame hypotheses and define success metrics.
• Serve as a subject matter expert for statistical forecasting within the demand planning organization.
• Identify and address data quality issues affecting the forecasting engine; work cross‑functionally to remediate root causes.
• Drive end‑user understanding and adoption of forecasting tools and processes, including training and change‑management activities.

Benefits

• Bonus based on performance and eligibility target payout is 10% of annual salary paid out annually.
• Paid time off subject to eligibility, including paid parental leave, vacation, sick, and bereavement.
• In addition to salary, PepsiCo offers a comprehensive benefits package to support our employees and their families, subject to elections and eligibility: Medical, Dental, Vision, Disability, Health, and Dependent Care Reimbursement Accounts, Employee Assistance Program (EAP), Insurance (Accident, Group Legal, Life), Defined Contribution Retirement Plan.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level
• Education Level: No Education Listed
• Number of Employees: 5,001-10,000 employees