Lead Data Scientist - Applied AI (P4656)
84.51°
$125,000 - $207,000 / year
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Description
84.51° Overview:
84.51° is a retail data science, insights and media company. We help The Kroger Co., consumer packaged goods companies, agencies, publishers and affiliates create more personalized and valuable experiences for shoppers across the path to purchase.
Powered by cutting-edge science, we utilize first-party retail data from more than 62 million U.S. households sourced through the Kroger Plus loyalty card program to fuel a more customer-centric journey using 84.51° Insights, 84.51° Loyalty Marketing and our retail media advertising solution, Kroger Precision Marketing.
84.51° follows a 5‑day in‑office work schedule to support collaboration, alignment, and team connection.
Join us at 84.51°!
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Lead Data Scientist, Applied AI, AI Enablement (P4656)
Summary
We are seeking an experienced Lead Data Scientist to serve as an AI Engineer for our Applied AI team. The Applied AI team is a group of data scientists and engineers that drive co-development and integration of AI solutions throughout the Kroger and 84.51 businesses. We work with a variety of teams to build AI Agents, implement Embeddings-based solutions, and apply proprietary language models to enhance business processes.
Responsibilities
- Work with business teams to co-develop AI solutions, including AI Agents, for their business
- Mentor and lead work for junior members of the team
- Quickly upskill on stakeholder domains, technologies, and ways of working
- Proactively identify and evaluate business use cases that can be solved with AI
- Design and execute rapid proof of concepts to demonstrate business value and feasibility for specific business problems to gain buy-in
- Democratize learnings from projects across the business via creation of cookbooks, trainings, and informal presentations
- Provide technical guidance for production implementations and troubleshoot integration challenges.
- Work cross-functionally with engineering partners and business teams to ensure solutions that are flexible and modular
- Stay up to date on changes in the Generative AI, Agents, and Embeddings spaces
Qualifications and Experience
Required
- Advanced degree in Data Science, ML, Computer Science, or related field; 5+ years data science experience with 2+ years in senior role
- Hands-on experience with LLMs, embeddings, and AI Agents in a variety of Agent Harnesses.
- Strong understanding of AI Agent Tools, Skills, and Prompting
- Understanding of how to apply Embeddings to different AI projects
- Strong programming in Python
- Exceptional communication skills with ability to explain complex technical concepts to non-technical audiences
- Experience in stakeholder management, technical documentation creation, and cross-functional collaboration
- Strong analytical, problem-solving, and decision-making skills
- High level of independence to develop and own toolkits, pipelines, and dashboards.
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills to work with cross-functional teams.
- Ability to work in a highly collaborative environment
- Strong ability to quickly adapt to new business problems and technologies
- Desire to lead project work and mentor junior members of the team
Preferred
- Experience deploying solutions for quick proof-of-concept work
- Experience building AI Agent Evaluations and Trace
#LI-SSS
Pay Transparency and Benefits
- The stated salary range represents the entire span applicable across all geographic markets from lowest to highest. Actual salary offers will be determined by multiple factors including but not limited to geographic location, relevant experience, knowledge, skills, other job-related qualifications, and alignment with market data and cost of labor. In addition to salary, this position is also eligible for variable compensation.
- Below is a list of some of the benefits we offer our associates:
- Health: Medical: with competitive plan designs and support for self-care, wellness and mental health. Dental: with in-network and out-of-network benefit. Vision: with in-network and out-of-network benefit.
- Wealth: 401(k) with Roth option and matching contribution. Health Savings Account with matching contribution (requires participation in qualifying medical plan). AD&D and supplemental insurance options to help ensure additional protection for you.
- Happiness: Paid time off with flexibility to meet your life needs, including 5 weeks of vacation time, 7 health and wellness days, 3 floating holidays, as well as 6 company-paid holidays per year. Paid leave for maternity, paternity and family care instances.
Benefits
- health insurance
- 401(k)
- paid time off
- parental leave
About this role
At 84.51°, you'd be leading the practical deployment of generative AI across a retail data science company that works with Kroger and major consumer brands. The Applied AI team builds AI Agents, embedding-based solutions, and custom language model applications that solve real business problems—and this role sits at the center of that work, combining hands-on technical development with mentorship and cross-functional leadership.
The position demands deep expertise in LLMs, embeddings, and AI Agent frameworks, along with five-plus years of data science experience and at least two years in a senior capacity. You'd move between rapid prototyping to validate business use cases, guiding junior team members, and troubleshooting production implementations alongside engineering partners. A significant part of the job involves translating complex AI concepts for non-technical stakeholders and codifying lessons learned so the broader organization can adopt them—so communication and the ability to quickly master new domains are as critical as your Python skills.
This is a full-time, in-office role in Cincinnati requiring five days per week on-site. The salary range is $125,000–$207,000, with variable compensation, plus comprehensive benefits including medical, dental, vision, 401(k) matching, and five weeks of vacation annually.
How this employer is doing
average
- News: Layoffs Mentioned
This role's local market on JobMinglr
Pay for this role
$125,000 to $207,000 per year
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