Chief Data Scientist

EPAM Systems; United States; Remote; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

EPAM Systems Inc. seeks a Chief Data Scientist with extensive LLM and Python expertise to develop AI-powered chatbot solutions for specialized use cases.

You will lead NLP and Conversational AI initiatives, drive prompt engineering, and guide data analysis to shape scalable, ethical AI deployments across cloud infrastructure. Strong leadership and communication are essential.

Qualifications

• 7+ years of applied experience in data science or AI roles.
• At least 2 years in leadership and team management.
• Strong mastery of Large Language Models, including OpenAI APIs on Azure.
• Advanced Python development for connecting and orchestrating AI workflows.
• Proven history of AI agents using function calling to interact with external systems.
• Experience in hallucination mitigation techniques for reliable outputs.
• Clear understanding of Responsible AI and compliance principles.

Responsibilities

• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to craft and enhance a shopping assistant chatbot.
• Design and iterate on prompt engineering techniques to improve dialogue quality.
• Develop LLM-based agents that connect with APIs, databases, and third-party services via function calling.
• Ensure chatbot stability and minimize hallucinations with thorough model evaluation.
• Apply A/B testing frameworks to measure and boost chatbot effectiveness.
• Integrate Responsible AI and compliance foundations for ethical and regulatory alignment.
• Conduct exploratory data analysis (EDA) to extract insights for data engineering specifications.
• Guide cloud engineering teams on infrastructure prerequisites for AI-driven chatbot rollouts.

Skills

LLMs

Python

NLP

Conversational AI

Leadership

Azure OpenAI

Function calling

A/B testing

Responsible AI

Data analysis

Tools

OpenAI APIs on Azure

Job description

We are seeking a Chief Data Scientist with extensive expertise in Large Language Models (LLMs) and Python to develop AI-powered chatbot solutions for specialized use cases. The ideal candidate offers a strong grounding in Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Conversational AI, together with practical experience in hallucination reduction, Responsible AI and compliance, and data analysis.

Responsibilities

• Collaborate with cross-disciplinary teams across product, analytics, and engineering to craft and enhance a shopping assistant chatbot
• Design and iterate on prompt engineering techniques to lift the quality of chatbot dialogues
• Develop LLM-based agents that connect with APIs, databases, and third-party services through function calling
• Ensure chatbot stability and minimize hallucinations by employing thorough model evaluation practices
• Apply A/B testing frameworks to gauge and steadily boost chatbot effectiveness
• Integrate Responsible AI and compliance foundations to secure ethical behavior and regulatory alignment
• Conduct exploratory data analysis (EDA) to reveal insights and translate them into precise specifications for the data engineering team
• Guide cloud engineering teams on the infrastructure prerequisites needed for AI-driven chatbot rollouts

Requirements

• At least 7 years of applied professional experience in data science or AI-focused roles
• A minimum of 2 years of leadership and team management background
• Strong mastery of Large Language Models, including working experience with OpenAI APIs on Azure
• Advanced Python development skills for connecting, orchestrating, and enhancing AI workflows
• Proven history of creating AI agents that leverage function calling to interact with external systems and databases
• Sound understanding of hallucination mitigation techniques to keep chatbot outputs accurate and reliable
• Clear grasp of Responsible AI and compliance principles, together with ethical AI guidelines
• Established expertise in Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Conversational AI development
• Strong English communication abilities at B2 level or higher, in both written and spoken formats
• Nice to have Hands-on experience with A/B testing and experimentation, partnering closely with analytics teams
• Ability to shape and put in place a testing framework built around key performance metrics tailored to chatbot solutions
• Command of exploratory data analysis (EDA) to extract meaningful patterns from large datasets
• Capability to prepare clear, structured data requirements for the data engineering team
• Awareness of cloud services, whether through direct hands-on involvement or by defining infrastructure needs for cloud engineering teams