Sr Data Scientist - Advanced AI / AI Factory

Pay is based on several factors which vary based on position. These include labor markets and in some instances may include education, work experience and certifications. In addition to your pay, Target cares about and invests in you as a team member, so that you can take care of yourself and your family. Target offers eligible team members and their dependents comprehensive health benefits and programs, which may include medical, vision, dental, life insurance and more, to help you and your family take care of your whole selves. Other benefits for eligible team members include 401(k), employee discount, short term disability, long term disability, paid sick leave, paid national holidays, and paid vacation. Find competitive benefits from financial and education to well-being and beyond at https://corporate.target.com/careers/benefits.

JOIN TARGET AS A SR DATA SCIENTIST - ADVANCED AI

About Us:

Working at Target means helping all families discover the joy of everyday life. We bring that vision to life through our values and culture. Learn more about Target here.

About the Role:

Target’s Advanced AI team builds end-to-end AI/ML systems that create meaningful business value across the enterprise. These systems may be powered by LLMs, classical machine learning, or deep learning models, and are designed as scalable, reliable, production-grade applications, including agentic architectures where they add clear value.

As a Sr Data Scientist for Advanced AI, you will help develop, evaluate, and scale AI/ML capabilities that drive automation, insight, and action across core business workflows. You will work closely with AI Engineers, Full-Stack Engineers, product partners, platform teams, security teams, and business stakeholders to translate business problems into practical AI/ML solutions.

In this role, you will contribute hands-on across the data science lifecycle, including problem framing, data exploration, model development, experimentation, evaluation, and production partnership. You will work across LLM-powered applications, classical machine learning, deep learning, retrieval-augmented generation, intelligent automation, and other applied AI patterns where appropriate.

You will partner with engineering teams to help ensure AI/ML solutions are measurable, reliable, maintainable, and aligned to Target’s enterprise standards. This includes contributing to evaluation strategies, model performance analysis, feedback loops, human-in-the-loop workflows, and responsible AI practices. You will help identify risks, resolve ambiguity, communicate tradeoffs, and contribute to reusable AI/ML patterns for the broader Advanced AI team.

A successful Senior Data Scientist will help deliver high-quality AI/ML capabilities that create measurable business value while strengthening data science, experimentation, evaluation, and applied AI practices across the team.

Core responsibilities of this job are articulated within this job description. Job duties may change at any time due to business needs.

About you:

• 4-year degree in Quantitative disciplines (Science, Tech, Engineering, Mathematics) or equivalent industry experience required; MS or PhD in Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence, Physics, Applied Mathematics or a related technical field preferred
• 3+ years of hands-on experience in applied data science, machine learning, applied or AI/ML systems
• Experience developing and evaluating AI/ML solutions, including LLM-powered applications, classical machine learning models, deep learning models, recommender systems, optimization methods, intelligent automation, or data-intensive decision systems.
• Strong proficiency with Python and common data science, machine learning, and deep learning libraries such as pandas, NumPy, scikit-learn, PyTorch, TensorFlow, or similar tools.
• Experience working with LLMs, prompt engineering, retrieval-augmented generation, model APIs, embeddings, evaluation frameworks, or AI observability tools is preferred
• Understanding of the model development lifecycle, including problem framing, data exploration, feature engineering, model selection, experimentation, validation, evaluation, deployment partnership, monitoring, and continuous improvement
• Ability to define and apply success metrics and evaluation approaches for AI/ML systems, including measures of model quality, reliability, adoption, and business impact
• Experience partnering with engineers to move models, prototypes, or AI/ML capabilities toward production applications
• Ability to translate business problems into structured data science and modeling approaches
• Strong communication skills, with the ability to explain AI/ML concepts, tradeoffs, risks, and recommendations to technical partners, business stakeholders, and leaders
• Ability to work independently on defined workstreams, collaborate effectively with senior technical partners, and contribute to strong data science practices within the team.
• Experience working in large enterprise environments with data governance, privacy, security, platform, and operational requirements is helpful
• Self-driven and results-oriented, with strong ownership, curiosity, sound judgment, and the ability to move quickly while maintaining high technical standards
• Collaborative team player with a commitment to continuous learning, knowledge sharing, responsible AI practices, and building reliable AI/ML systems that create business value

This position will operate as a Hybrid/Flex for Your Day work arrangement based on Target’s needs. A Hybrid/Flex for Your Day work arrangement means the team member’s core role will need to be performed both onsite at the Target HQ MN location the role is assigned to and virtually, depending upon what your role, team and tasks require for that day. Work duties cannot be performed outside of the country of the primary work location, unless otherwise prescribed by Target. Click here if you are curious to learn more about Minnesota.

Benefits Eligibility

Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)

In compliance with state and federal laws, Target will make reasonable accommodations for applicants with disabilities. If a reasonable accommodation is needed to participate in the job application or interview process, please reach out to candidate.accommodations@HRHelp.Target.com.Non-accommodation-relatedrequests, such as application follow-ups or technical issues, will not be addressed through this channel.