Sr AI Engineer- Item Science

A role with Item Science means the chance to help develop and manage state of the art GenAI, Computer Vision, NLP and ML algorithms . You’ll be challenged to harness Target’s impressive data breadth to build the algorithms that power solutions our partners in Mech/item Digital etc rely on. Every Scientist on Target’s Data Sciences team can expect modelling and data science, software/product development of highly performant code for Model Performance, to elevate Target’s culture, and apply retail domain knowledge.

As a Senior AI Engineer , you’ll influence by interacting with the Data Sciences team, Product teams, Scientist/Engineer individual contributors from other pillars, and business partners. You will perform within the scale and scope of your role by defining solutions and beginning to identify problems to solve and contribute to Data Sciences’ and Target’s culture by modeling and contributing to the culture. You’ll get the opportunity to use your expertise in one or more of the following areas: machine learning, probability theory & statistics, optimization theory, Simulation, Econometrics, Deep Learning, Natural Language processing or computer vision. We will look to you to own design and implementation of an algorithmic solution (e.g., recommendation or forecasting algorithm), including data understanding, feature engineering, model development, validation and testing, and deployment to a production environment.

You’ll drive development of problem statements that capture the business considerations, define metrics/measurement to validate model performance, and drive feasibility study with data requirements and potential solutions approaches to be considered. You’ll evaluate tradeoffs of simple vs complex models/solutions in determining the right technique to employ for a business problem and develop and maintain a nuanced understanding of the data generated by the business, including fundamental limitations of the data. You’ll leverage your proficiency in one or more approved programming languages (Java, Scala, Python, R), and ensure foundational programming principles in developing code (best practices, writes unit tests, code organization, basics of CI/CD etc.) are followed in developing the team’s products/models.

You’ll not only stitch together basic data pipelines for a given problem and own design and implementation of individual components within Data Science/Tech applications, but also articulate the technical strategy, value of technology, and impact on the business. As you do so, you’ll collaborate with engineers, scientists, and business partners/product owners to create algorithmic solutions that are performant and integrated into applications. We’ll look to you to mentor and provide technical support within a team, including mentoring junior team members, and present your work and your team’s work to business partners and other Data Sciences teams. With a deeper understanding of your functional area of responsibility, you’ll support agile ceremonies, collaborate with peers across multiple products, communicate and collaborate with business partners, and demonstrate an understanding of areas outside your scope of responsibility. The exciting part of retail? It’s always changing!

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

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or equivalent experience, with 4+ years in software design, development, and algorithmic solutions.

Strong programming skills in Java, Python, or Scala, along with hands-on experience building distributed and large-scale systems.

Expertise in machine learning, deep learning, and big-data processing for ad-tech applications such as targeting, personalization, and optimization.

Proven ability to design and deploy scalable ML pipelines, backend APIs, and data-driven systems.

Demonstrates experience in analysis and optimization of systems capacity, performance, and operational health

Good knowledge and experience developing optimization, simulation, and statistical models

Strong analytical thinking skills. Ability to creatively solve business problems, innovating new approaches where required

Passion for solving interesting and relevant real-world problems using a data science approach

Life at Target- https://india.target.com/