Lead Data Scientist, AI Enablement & Agent Solutions

84.51˚; Chicago (IL); On-site; USD 125,000 - 207,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health benefits

401(k) with matching

Paid time off

Wellness programs

Job summary

84.51° is a retail data science, insights and media company seeking a Lead Data Scientist to serve as an AI Engineer for the Applied AI team. You will drive co-development and integration of AI solutions across Kroger and 84.51 businesses, focusing on AI Agents, embeddings-based approaches, and proprietary language models to improve processes.

Responsibilities include mentoring, rapid PoCs, stakeholder collaboration, and ensuring production-ready implementations with engineering partners.

Qualifications

• Advanced degree in Data Science, ML, Computer Science, or related field with 5+ years data science experience including senior responsibilities.
• Hands-on experience with LLMs, embeddings, and AI Agents across varied environments.
• Strong programming in Python; ability to explain technical concepts to non-technical audiences.

Responsibilities

• Collaborate with business teams to co-develop AI solutions, including AI Agents.
• Mentor and lead junior team members; upskill stakeholders and teams.
• Identify and evaluate business use cases for AI applicability; design rapid proofs of concept.
• Provide technical guidance for production implementations and troubleshoot integrations.
• Work cross-functionally with engineering and business partners to ensure modular, scalable solutions.
• Stay updated on Generative AI, Agents, and Embeddings developments.

Skills

LLMs

Embeddings

AI Agents

Python

Stakeholder Management

Cross-functional Collaboration

Communication Skills

Mentoring

Problem Solving

Independent Tooling

Education

Advanced degree in Data Science/ML/CS

Tools

Agent Harnesses

Job description

84.51° is a retail data science, insights and media company seeking a Lead Data Scientist to serve as an AI Engineer for the Applied AI team. You will drive co-development and integration of AI solutions across Kroger and 84.51 businesses, focusing on AI Agents, embeddings-based approaches, and proprietary language models to improve processes.

Responsibilities include mentoring, rapid PoCs, stakeholder collaboration, and ensuring production-ready implementations with engineering partners.