Lead Data Scientist (Context Engineering)

Rivian is on a mission to keep the world adventurous forever. This goes for the emissions-free Electric Adventure Vehicles we build, and the curious, courageous souls we seek to attract.

As a company, we constantly challenge what’s possible, never simply accepting what has always been done. We reframe old problems, seek new solutions and operate comfortably in areas that are unknown. Our backgrounds are diverse, but our team shares a love of the outdoors and a desire to protect it for future generations.

Role Summary

Rivian's AI team sits within the Analytics function of the Customer organization-the team that spans Marketing, Sales, and Market Intelligence-and is building the semantic and data infrastructure that makes intelligent agents possible at scale. As a Staff/Lead Data Scientist focused on Context Engineering, you will design the knowledge layer that AI agents reason from-owning the ontologies, semantic models, identity resolution logic, and retrieval architecture that unify Rivian's Marketing, Sales, and Fulfillment data into a coherent, AI-consumable ecosystem. This is a foundational systems role: the agents are only as good as the context you build. You'll work at the intersection of data architecture, knowledge engineering, and applied AI, partnering closely with the Agentic Solutions team, Data Platform, MarTech, and the broader Customer org Analytics team.

Responsibilities

• Customer Domain Ontology: Design, develop, and own the semantic layer and business ontology-mapping definitions, relationships, and business logic across Marketing, Sales, and Fulfillment. Ensure AI agents have a standardized, enterprise-wide conceptual framework to reason accurately and consistently.
• Cross-Functional Data Modeling: Architect a unified 'Customer 360' schema that harmonizes disparate data streams from Marketing, Sales, and Fulfillment into a single, AI-consumable source of truth.
• RAG & Vector Architecture: Design the Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) infrastructure, determining how unstructured data (e.g., shipping logs, sales notes, brand guidelines) is indexed, chunked, and retrieved for agentic context.
• Identity & State Orchestration: Build the logic for persistent identity resolution and conversation state, ensuring an AI agent can maintain customer context as they move from a sales inquiry to a fulfillment update.
• Agentic Tooling & API Design: Architect the Action Layer-the secure framework of APIs and function calls that allow agents to execute tasks across Salesforce, Braze, and specialized in-house applications.
• AI Data Governance: Establish protocols for data privacy, security, and latency, ensuring agents only access authorized data and respond with sub-second retrieval times.

Qualifications

• Education: Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Data Engineering, or a related technical field; Master's degree preferred.
• Experience: 8+ years in Data Architecture, Systems Engineering, or Data Engineering, with a proven track record of designing complex, multi-source data ecosystems.
• Semantic Modeling & Ontologies: Proven experience building semantic layers, knowledge graphs, or data ontologies. Ability to translate abstract business rules and cross-departmental relationships into structured data definitions that LLMs can naturally interpret.
• Architectural Vision: A systems-thinking mindset; you can map how a change in a fulfillment status ripples through the data layer to inform a marketing re-engagement agent.
• Databricks Expertise: Deep mastery of the Databricks ecosystem (Unity Catalog, Delta Lake, Vector Search) to manage the end-to-end data lifecycle for AI.
• Technical Mastery: Expert-level command of vector databases and orchestration frameworks (e.g., LangChain, LlamaIndex). Expert-level Python and strong SQL. You understand the plumbing required to connect LLMs to enterprise data.
• MarTech & CRM Literacy: Deep functional knowledge of how data is structured within CDP platforms, CRM systems (e.g., Salesforce), and behavioral event streams to support cross-departmental agent hand-offs.
• Internal Systems Integration: Experience architecting data flows between modern cloud stacks and proprietary in-house applications, ensuring seamless bi-directional communication for AI agents.
• Environment: Comfortable operating in a fast-paced, high-ambiguity environment with strong attention to detail, a builder's mentality, and the ability to make principled architectural decisions with incomplete information.
• Ability to stand, sit, or walk for 8-10 hours per day.
• Required to communicate using phone and/or e-mail.
• Ability to view, read, and interpret documents.
• Ability to perform all duties in an office environment that may contain ambient noise and temperature fluctuations.

Pay Disclosure

The salary range for this role is $154,000 to $192,500 for Irvine, CA and El Segundo, CA based applicants. This is the lowest to highest salary we in good faith believe we would pay for this role at the time of this posting. An employee’s position within the salary range will be based on several factors including, but not limited to, specific competencies, relevant education, qualifications, certifications, experience, skills, geographic location, shift, and organizational needs.

The successful candidate may be eligible for annual performance bonus and equity awards.

We offer a comprehensive package of benefits for full-time and part-time employees, their spouse or domestic partner, and children up to age 26, including but not limited to paid vacation, paid sick leave, and a competitive portfolio of insurance benefits including life, medical, dental, vision, short-term disability insurance, and long-term disability insurance to eligible employees. You may also have the opportunity to participate in Rivian’s 401(k) Plan and Employee Stock Purchase Plan if you meet certain eligibility requirements. Full-time employee coverage is effective on their first day of employment. Part-time employee coverage is effective the first of the month following 90 days of employment. More information about benefits is available at rivianbenefits.com.

You can apply for this role through careers.rivian.com (or through internal-careers-rivian.icims.com if you are a current employee). This job is not expected to be closed any sooner than July 31, 2026.

Equal Opportunity

Rivian is an equal opportunity employer and complies with all applicable federal, state, and local fair employment practices laws. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, ancestry, sex, sexual orientation, gender, gender expression, gender identity, genetic information or characteristics, physical or mental disability, marital/domestic partner status, age, military/veteran status, medical condition, or any other characteristic protected by law.

Rivian is committed to ensuring that our hiring process is accessible for persons with disabilities. If you have a disability or limitation, such as those covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act, that requires accommodations to assist you in the search and application process, please email us at [email protected].

Candidate Data Privacy and Technology

Rivian may collect, use and disclose your personal information or personal data (within the meaning of the applicable data protection laws) when you apply for employment and/or participate in our recruitment processes (“Candidate Personal Data”). This data includes contact, demographic, communications, educational, professional, employment, social media/website, network/device, recruiting system usage/interaction, security and preference information. Rivian may use your Candidate Personal Data for the purposes of (i) tracking interactions with our recruiting system; (ii) carrying out, analyzing and improving our application and recruitment process, including assessing you and your application and conducting employment, background and reference checks; (iii) establishing an employment relationship or entering into an employment contract with you; (iv) complying with our legal, regulatory and corporate governance obligations; (v) recordkeeping; (vi) ensuring network and information security and preventing fraud; and (vii) as otherwise required or permitted by applicable law.

Rivian may share your Candidate Personal Data with (i) internal personnel who have a need to know such information in order to perform their duties, including individuals on our People Team, Finance, Legal, and the team(s) with the position(s) for which you are applying; (ii) Rivian affiliates; and (iii) Rivian’s service providers, including providers of background checks, staffing services, and cloud services.

Rivian may transfer or store internationally your Candidate Personal Data, including to or in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the European Union and in the cloud, and this data may be subject to the laws and accessible to the courts, law enforcement and national security authorities of such jurisdictions.

How We Use AI in Our Hiring Process: To ensure transparency, we want candidates to know that Rivian uses iCIMS Talent Cloud Artificial Intelligence (TCAI) and AI-enabled tools to assist with screening, reviewing, organizing and highlighting profiles and applications that match the key requirements for each role.

AI does not make hiring decisions: Qualified candidate applications are reviewed by a member of our team, and all decisions throughout the process are made by humans. We use AI to support efficiency and consistency, not to replace human judgment. We are committed to a fair, thoughtful, and equitable experience for every candidate.

Participation in AI profile matching is entirely voluntary. If you prefer that your profile not be used in this process, you can opt out at any time. Opting out means your profile will be excluded from automated matching and will not be surfaced for additional roles through this system. Your current application remains active and will not be affected in any way.

Please note that we are currently not accepting applications from third party application services.