Data Scientist II - ML Engineering

H-E-B; San Antonio (TX); On-site; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

H-E-B seeks a Senior Data Scientist II to lead ML platform design, deployment, and governance. You’ll orchestrate ML pipelines, ensure scalable serving, and drive Generative AI initiatives across business domains in a retail context.

You will collaborate with data scientists and engineers, implement CI/CD for ML workloads, and translate complex analytics into actionable business insights, leveraging state-of-the-art tools and responsible AI practices.

Qualifications

• 5+ years in retail or retail-related decision science.
• Expertise in ML visualization flow.
• Expertise in optimizing distributed ML in heterogeneous environments.
• Related degree or comparable formal training or work experience

Responsibilities

• Design, create, and maintain an ML platform and related environments.
• Manage Docker containers and Kubernetes clusters, oversee dependencies and configurations, and implement CI/CD pipelines for automated building, testing, and deployment of ML models.
• Monitor and optimize model training performance and resource usage.
• Deploy ML models to production environments and manage versioning and rollback mechanisms.
• Ensure scalable and reliable model serving using Vertex, Databricks, TensorFlow Serving, Flask, or FastAPI, with infrastructure that scales for growing model counts.
• Collaborate with data scientists, data engineers, and stakeholders to understand and fulfill infrastructure needs; stay updated with ML infra best practices.
• Architect and develop Generative AI solutions focusing on Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), search, knowledge graphs, and multi-agent workflows.
• Handle both unstructured and structured data for LLM context; embed large corpora and build connectors to databases.
• Train models and fine-tune hyperparameters to optimize performance; develop cross-domain learning frameworks.
• Specialize in AI interpretation and causality; measure bias, underspecification, and latent drivers; design enterprise reasoning systems.
• Orchestrate reusable storytelling methodology for AI translation and business action.
• Apply AI transparency to business decisions and translate insights into actionable recommendations.
• Apply AI research to accelerate business innovation and drive results.

Skills

SQL

Python

R

Scala

Java

C/C++

NLP/NLU

Deep learning

Reinforcement learning

Graph networks

Federated learning

Meta-learning

MLOps

Cython

Numba

Education

Related degree or equivalent training

Tools

Vertex AI

Databricks

TensorFlow Serving

Flask

FastAPI

Docker

Kubernetes

CI/CD pipelines

Job description

Responsibilities

H-E-B's Corporate Planning and Analysis Team develops and maintains budgets and financial systems while providing current, reliable financial data, analysis, and technical information. As a Data Scientist II, your archetype is a Business Decision Scientist. Your passions include building a framework to stitch cross domains learning and optimizing them toward mission-specific and multi-mission tasks, uncovering ML models causality relationships, creating an enterprise domain-specific reasoning system to boost actionable insights and optimize resources of machine learning process, and orchestrating reusable storytelling methodology to apply toward AI translation. Once you're eligible, you'll become an Owner in the company, so we're looking for commitment, hard work, and focus on quality and Customer service. 'Partner-owned' means our most important resources--People--drive the innovation, growth, and success that make H-E-B The Greatest Omnichannel Retailing Company. Do you have a: HEART FOR PEOPLE… willingness to take a break from algorithmic thinking / detecting to translate and share your findings with a variety of business customers? HEAD FOR BUSINESS... skills to blend mass data-wrangling with business acumen? PASSION FOR RESULTS... drive to generate business-valued questions and data-based solutions? We are looking for: - a thought leader of ML innovation who orchestrates business solutions across ML pipelines

• Handles the design, creation, and maintenance of an ML platform and related environments.
• Manages Docker containers and Kubernetes clusters, oversees dependencies and configurations, and implements CI/CD pipelines for automated building, testing, and deployment of machine learning models.
• Monitors and optimizes model training performance and resource usage.
• Deploys ML models to production environments and manages model versioning and rollback mechanisms.
• Ensures scalable and reliable model serving using tools like Vertex, Databricks, TensorFlow Serving, Flask, or FastAPI, ensuring the infrastructure can scale to meet the growing demands as the complexity and number of ML models increase.
• Works closely with data scientists, data engineers, and stakeholders to understand and fulfill their infrastructure needs. Stays updated with the latest technologies and best practices in ML infrastructure.
• Architects and develops Generative AI solutions utilizing Machine Learning and GenAI techniques. Collaborates with leadership to identify AI opportunities and promote AI strategy. Specializes in engineering and deploying Generative AI models, with a specific focus on Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) systems, search, knowledge graphs, and multi-agent workflows.
• Handles both unstructured and structured data, preparing it to be used as context for Language Model Learning (LLM). This involves tasks ranging from embedding large text corpora and developing generative SQL queries, to building connectors to structured databases.
• Trains models on prepared data and fine-tuning hyperparameters to achieve optimal performance. Analytics / Design & Development:
• Builds a framework to stitch cross domains learning; optimizes them toward mission-specific and multi-mission tasks
• Serves as expert specializing in AI interpretation and causality; uncovers ML model's causality relationships; builds framework to measure each model's bias, underspecification, and latent drivers with their connections
• Creates an enterprise domain-specific reasoning system to boost actionable insights and optimize the resources of machine learning process
• Orchestrates reusable storytelling methodology to apply toward AI translation
• Applies an inquisitive nature to creating ML / AI transparency to the business
• Applies AI reasoning into business action recommendations
• Applies AI research to accelerate business innovation

What is your background?

• A related degree or comparable formal training, certification, or work experience
• 5+ years of experience in a retail or retail-related decision science role
• Expertise in ML visualization flow
• Expertise in optimizing distributed machine learning in a heterogeneous domain environment

Do you have what it takes to be a Senior Data Scientist at H-E-B?

• Technical knowledge in programming languages: SQL, R, Python, Scala, Java, C/C++
• Technical knowledge in big data / ML optimization: GPU code optimization, Horovod, Spark MLlib optimization, Cython, JNI, Numba
• Technical knowledge in mainstream ML / AI: manifold learning, distributed clustering, graph network, hierarchical model, Bayesian network, deep learning, computer vision, NLP/NLU, reinforcement learning, meta-Learning, federated learning
• Technical skills to consider and apply causal reasoning representation and learning, and human-centric, explainable, responsible AI
• Ability as a creative storyteller and translator between business questions and ML solutions
• Ability to work comfortably with imperfect or incomplete data
• Ability to apply AI reasoning into business action recommendation
• Can you...
• Work in a fast-paced retail environment with frequently shifting priorities
• Work extended hours; sit for long periods 08-2021