(USA) Staff, Data Scientist

Role summary:

The Staff Data Scientist provides technical leadership for large-scale Search and Personalization initiatives, driving the design and deployment of advanced AI solutions across multiple products. This role influences technical strategy, mentors senior scientists, and partners across engineering and product organizations to deliver scalable machine learning systems that improve customer discovery and business outcomes.

About the team:

The Applied AI Search & Personalization team develops scalable AI systems that transform how millions of customers discover products. We build intelligent retrieval, ranking, recommendation, and personalization models while leveraging Generative AI to create next-generation shopping experiences.

What you''ll do:

• Lead architecture and technical direction for Search and Personalization machine learning systems.
• Design scalable retrieval, ranking, recommendation, and personalization algorithms.
• Drive adoption of Generative AI, Large Language Models, embeddings, and semantic search capabilities.
• Lead cross-functional initiatives involving Product, Engineering, Platform, and Data Science teams.
• Establish experimentation frameworks and best practices for model development and evaluation.
• Mentor senior scientists and review technical designs across multiple initiatives.
• Influence long-term AI strategy and technology investments.
• Drive measurable improvements in customer engagement, search relevance, and business metrics.

What you''ll bring:

• Extensive experience building production AI/ML systems at scale.
• Deep expertise in Search, Information Retrieval, Recommendation Systems, Personalization, or Ranking.
• Experience with transformer models, embeddings, vector search, LLMs, or Generative AI applications.
• Strong understanding of ML system architecture, MLOps, and distributed model deployment.
• Expertise in experimentation, causal inference, and performance evaluation.
• Excellent technical leadership and stakeholder management skills.
• Proven ability to influence architecture and mentor technical teams across organizations.

At Walmart, we offer competitive pay as well as performance-based bonus awards and other great benefits for a happier mind, body, and wallet. Health benefits include medical, vision and dental coverage. Financial benefits include 401(k), stock purchase and company-paid life insurance. Paid time off benefits include PTO (including sick leave), parental leave, family care leave, bereavement, jury duty, and voting. Other benefits include short-term and long-term disability, company discounts, Military Leave Pay, adoption and surrogacy expense reimbursement, and more. You will also receive PTO and/or PPTO that can be used for vacation, sick leave, holidays, or other purposes. The amount you receive depends on your job classification and length of employment. It will meet or exceed the requirements of paid sick leave laws, where applicable. For information about PTO, see https://one.walmart.com/notices. Live Better U is a Walmart-paid education benefit program for full-time and part-time associates in Walmart and Sam''s Club facilities. Programs range from high school completion to bachelor''s degrees, including English Language Learning and short-form certificates. Tuition, books, and fees are completely paid for by Walmart.

Eligibility requirements apply to some benefits and may depend on your job classification and length of employment. Benefits are subject to change and may be subject to a specific plan or program terms.

For information about benefits and eligibility, see One.Walmart.

The annual salary range for this position is $143,000.00 - $286,000.00 Additional compensation includes annual or quarterly performance bonuses. Additional compensation for certain positions may also include :

• Stock