{"id":1369705,"url":"https://alion.io/job/norfolk-southern-lead-data-scientist-machine-learning","title":"Lead Data Scientist - Machine Learning","company":{"id":1797468,"name":"Norfolk Southern","domain":"norfolksouthern.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/norfolksouthern","size_band":"5000+","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"SuccessFactors","truth_index":null},"role":"AI/ML","role_family":"AI/ML","seniority":"lead","employment_type":null,"work_mode":"hybrid","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["Atlanta, United States"],"countries":["US"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":null,"salary_estimate":{"min_usd":141000,"max_usd":288000,"period":"year","method":"role_seniority_country_remote_cell","sample_n":691},"experience_years_min":7,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"Computer Vision","optional":false},{"name":"LightGBM","optional":false},{"name":"Machine Learning","optional":false},{"name":"pySpark","optional":false},{"name":"Python","optional":false},{"name":"Spark","optional":false},{"name":"XGBoost","optional":false},{"name":"Databricks","optional":true},{"name":"Time Series Forecasting","optional":true}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-09-21T00:00:00Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-09-21","last_verified_at":"2026-10-13T06:54:45Z","board_verified":false,"closed_at":null,"days_open":24,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":24},"description":"Requisition 40325: B5 Lead Data Scientist - Machine Learning\nA resume helps you stand out to hiring managers and recruiters; your resume communicates your experience and your brand. While it is not required, we encourage you to include an up-to-date resume along with a completed job application to give you the best opportunity to be considered. A complete resume helps us to better understand your unique background, relevant experiences, and passions. We look forward to learning about you.\nNorfolk Southern offers a unique opportunity to be part of our proud legacy that spans nearly 200 years. We are a customer-centric, operations-driven team dedicated to advancing safety, serving communities, and driving innovation for tomorrow's rail. As part of Norfolk Southern, you’ll join a collaborative team where there are opportunities for growth across the organization. We are building a culture where everyone can thrive by owning and driving exceptional results, being humble and leading with trust, serving our customers with excellence, and collaborating and coaching to win.\nJob Description\nNorfolk Southern is seeking a Lead Data Scientist - Machine Learning to lead the design, development, deployment, and monitoring of advanced machine learning solutions that drive operational efficiency, safety, reliability, and business value across the enterprise.\nThis role combines deep technical expertise in machine learning with strong leadership and business engagement skills. The Lead Data Scientist will work closely with Data Engineering, Business Intelligence, Software Engineering, and business stakeholders to identify opportunities, develop scalable solutions, and mentor a team of data scientists. This position will focus on Machine Learning models (regression, classification, clustering, etc.) and it will not have a Computer Vision focus. Hands-on role requiring the individual to conduct research, develop and deploy analytical models, and take partial ownership of productionization activities to ensure successful implementation of solutions.\nWho we are and what we do:\nThe AI and Data Science team is centralized across the entire organization. We work with various product teams across various business units to define high-impact business problems, solve them using novel techniques, and execute and monitor them throughout their lifecycle. Most of our models make it to production, they never sit in a research lab. But we also do quite a bit of research to stay up-to-date with the latest technologies/algorithms. We are very collaborative; you will likely get lots of ideas from the team.\nWhat kind of problems do we solve:\nThere are high-frame cameras beside our tracks, capturing images of trains and rail cars as they pass. We design various Deep Learning and Computer Vision algorithms to detect certain objects of interest or issues and defects. We then optimize their performance and deploy them at the edge for real-time scoring and notification of our mechanical personnel upon detections. Our locomotives stream 350+ sensor information in real-time. We create predictive models to predict various component failures hours, days, and sometimes months in advance. The team is responsible for modeling operational data to develop data-driven solutions for network optimization problems, including ETA prediction and other transportation and logistics use cases. The team provides a wide range of ad hoc analytical support and insights to diverse stakeholder groups.\nResponsibilities\nLead the design, development, validation, and deployment of machine learning solutions.\nArchitect end-to-end ML workflows from data acquisition through production deployment and monitoring.\nEstablish standards and best practices for model development, experimentation, testing, and governance.\nDrive adoption of modern ML methodologies and tools across the organization.\nEffectively utilize appropriate statistical, Machine Learning, and Deep Learning techniques to solve various business problems\nCollaborate with various departments to identify opportunities for process improvement and developing analytics use-cases.\nProvide guidance, support and mentoring to junior team members.\nEvaluate accuracy and quality of data sources, as well as the designed models\nStay up to date with the latest models and changes in technology\nDesign and develop (almost) production ready code.\nCommunicate results to colleagues and business partners.\nCoordinate with application development teams to integrate developed models with existing applications.\nMentor and coach data scientists and machine learning engineers.\nEducation Required\nMaster’s or Ph.D. in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Machine Learning, Statistics or related field, OR Bachelor’s degree with 7+ years related machine learning experience.\nSkills Required:\n7+ years of experience as a Data Scientist, Research Scientist, Machine Learning Engineer or Computer Vision Scientist.\nDemonstrated expertise in machine learning and/or deep learning methodologies, including model development, optimization, and deployment, utilizing algorithms, frameworks, and tools (e.g. XGBoost, LightGBM, Randon Forests, SVMs, clustering, dimensionality reduction, and neural networks).\nAdvanced Python expertise is required, with a strong focus on modeling, data analysis, and visualization.\nSkills Preferred:\nAdvanced degree, e.g., Ph.D. or M.S. in deep learning, neural networks, machine learning, data science, computer science, electrical engineering, engineering, statistics, engineering, industrial systems, mathematical sciences, applied mathematics, Physics or or related technology-mathematics field.\n3+ years of experience as a Data Scientist, Research Scientist, Machine Learning Engineer, or Operations Research.\nHands-on and theoretical knowledge of various machine learning and deep learning algorithm and frameworks such as: xgboost/LightGBM, Random Forests, SVMs, PCA, t-sne, kmeans, DBSCAN.\nKnowledge of Spark (PySpark) is a plus\nKnowledge of the cloud computing environment (e.g. Databricks) is a plus\nExpertise with Time Series problems.\nFamiliarity with the railroad or transportation industry is a plus\nWork Conditions\nEnvironment: Hybrid 2 days on-site and remote work 3 days per week.\nShift Work: No\nOn-Call: No\nWeekend Work: No\nCompany Overview\nSince 1827, Norfolk Southern Corporation (NYSE: NSC) and its predecessor companies have safely moved the goods and materials that drive the U.S. economy. Today, it operates a customer-centric and operations-driven freight transportation network. Committed to furthering sustainability, Norfolk Southern helps its customers avoid 15 million tons of yearly carbon emissions by shipping via rail. Its dedicated team members deliver more than 7 million carloads annually, from agriculture to consumer goods, and is the largest rail shipper of auto products and metals in North America. Norfolk Southern also has the most extensive intermodal network in the eastern U.S., serving a majority of the country’s population and manufacturing base, with connections to every major container port on the Atlantic coast as well as the Gulf of Mexico and Great Lakes. Learn more by visiting www.NorfolkSouthern.com.\nAt Norfolk Southern, we believe in celebrating our individuality. By leveraging the unique backgrounds and viewpoints of our employees, we can create a culture of innovation, respect, and inclusion. We know that employees thrive in a workplace where differing viewpoints, ideas, and experiences are freely shared and valued. As such, we encourage all employees to contribute their distinctive skills and capabilities to our organization.\nEqual employment opportunities are available to all applicants regardless of race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetic information, veteran status, sexual orientation, and gender identity. 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