Lead Data Scientist - GenAI

Norfolk Southern Corp.; Atlanta (GA); Hybrid; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

Norfolk Southern Corp. is seeking a Lead Data Scientist (GenAI) to join our enterprise AI team. You will architect and deploy GenAI solutions across the business, leveraging LLMs, RAG, and MCP to deliver scalable, secure AI capabilities that drive value.

This role partners with executives and engineering teams to align AI initiatives with strategic goals. The ideal candidate has 5+ years in GenAI/DS/ML/NLP, strong Python and ML tooling, and hands-on production experience with large language

Qualifications

• 5+ years of GenAI, Data Science, Machine Learning, or NLP roles.
• Extensive experience in building and deploying LLMs in production.
• Proficiency in Python with libraries such as Scikit-learn, PyTorch, Pandas, NumPy, spaCy, NLTK, and Matplotlib.

Responsibilities

• Lead design and architecture of enterprise GenAI solutions tailored to business use cases.
• Design modular, framework-agnostic LLM pipelines using LangChain, LlamaIndex, or similar
• Define prompting strategies, agent patterns, and RAG architectures. Ensure approaches are scalable, reusable company-wide and drive adoption across teams.
• Oversee lifecycle of usecases, development to deployment to production and MLops.
• Ensure responsible AI practices, including explain ability, governance, and compliance.
• Evaluate emerging AI trends and help guide the adoption of high value innovations.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to understand business needs and deliver configurable, scalable solutions.

Skills

GenAI experience

Data Science

Machine Learning

NLP

Python

SQL

NoSQL

Docker

Kubernetes

CI/CD

Terraform

Education

Bachelor's degree in CS/Data Science/ML/AI

Master's or PhD preferred

Tools

Milvus

Pinecone

PGVector

LangChain

LlamaIndex

Databricks

OpenSearch

Docker

Kubernetes

Job description

Lead Data Scientist - GenAI

Date: Oct 14, 2026

Location: Atlanta, GA, US, 30308

Company: Norfolk Southern Corp.

Job Description

Who we are and what we do:

Norfolk Southern Corporation is seeking a Lead Data Scientist (GenAI) to join our enterprise AI team. This role focuses on developing, optimizing, and enhancing intelligent solutions using Generative AI technologies, including Large Language Models (LLMs), Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), and Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers. The ideal candidate will partner with technical and business leaders across the enterprise to deliver scalable, secure, and high-performing AI capabilities that drive business value. The position involves working with cloud-based platforms, modern AI/ML frameworks, and collaborating across business units to solve complex problems.

What kind of problems do we solve:

• Document Intelligence: Analyze and extract insights from thousands of corporate documents, reports, and operational data using advanced NLP techniques.
• Conversational AI: Build intelligent chat systems that help employees retrieve information and interact with enterprise data.
• GenAI Solutions: Creating and deploying Generative AI models for document processing, visual data analysis, and natural language understanding.
• Model Context Protocol (MCP): Enhance AI agent capabilities through custom tool integrations and context-aware servers.

Job Responsibilities

• Lead design and architecture of enterprise GenAI solutions tailored to business use cases.
• Design modular, framework-agnostic LLM pipelines using libraries such as LangChain, LlamaIndex, or similar
• Define prompting strategies, agent patterns, and RAG architectures. Ensure approaches are scalable, reusable company-wide and drive adoption across teams.
• Oversee lifecycle of usecases, development to deployment to production and MLops.
• Ensure responsible AI practices, including explain ability, governance, and compliance.
• Evaluate emerging AI trends and help guide the adoption of high value innovations.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to understand business needs and deliver configurable, scalable solutions.

Education Required

• Bachelor's required in computer science, data science, machine learning, NLP, AI, linguistics, or related field required. Masters or PhD is preferred.
• Skills Required:
• 5+ years of experience in GenAI, Data Science, Machine Learning, or NLP positions.
• Extensive background in building, finetuning and operationalizing large language models (LLMs) in production environment.
• Proficiency in Python, including libraries such as Scikit-learn, PyTorch, Pandas, NumPy, spaCy, NLTK, and Matplotlib.
• Skilled in SQL, NoSQL, Milvus, Pinecone, PGVector databases

Skills Preferred

• Advanced degree, e.g., Ph.D. or M.S. computer science, data science, machine learning, NLP, AI, linguistics, or related field preferred.
• Highly experienced in creating Agentic LLMs and knowledge of orchestration frameworks such as LangGraph.
• NLP and AI/ML Frameworks: Experience with training NLP models from scratch, working with Large Language Models, and using libraries such as Pytorch, and Transformers.
• Highly experienced with cloud platforms, preferably AWS (ECS, S3, Lambda, Bedrock, OpenSearch), Databricks, and Datadog.
• DevOps knowledge: Docker, Kubernetes, CI/CD, Git, Terraform.

Work Conditions

Environment: Hybrid 2 days on-site and remote work 3 days per week.

Shift Work: No

On-Call: No

Weekend Work: No

Company Overview

Since 1827, Norfolk Southern Corporation (NYSE: NSC) and its predecessor companies have safely moved the goods and materials that drive the U.S. economy. Today, it operates a customer-centric and operations-driven freight transportation network. Committed to furthering sustainability, Norfolk Southern helps its customers avoid 15 million tons of yearly carbon emissions by shipping via rail. Its dedicated team members deliver more than 7 million carloads annually, from agriculture to consumer goods, and is the largest rail shipper of auto products and metals in North America. Norfolk Southern also has the most extensive intermodal network in the eastern U.S., serving a majority of the country's population and manufacturing base, with connections to every major container port on the Atlantic coast as well as the Gulf of Mexico and Great Lakes. Learn more by visiting www.NorfolkSouthern.com.

At Norfolk Southern, we believe in celebrating our individuality. By leveraging the unique backgrounds and viewpoints of our employees, we can create a culture of innovation, respect, and inclusion. We know that employees thrive in a workplace where differing viewpoints, ideas, and experiences are freely shared and valued. We encourage all employees to contribute their distinctive skills and capabilities to our organization.

Equal employment opportunities are available to all applicants regardless of race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetic information, veteran status, sexual orientation, and gender identity. Together, we power progress.

Nearest Major Market: Atlanta