Lead Machine Learning Engineer, Merchandising AI (Remote/Hybrid)

Target; United States; Hybrid; USD 132,000 - 238,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

401(k)

employee discount

short term disability

long term disability

paid sick leave

paid national holidays

paid vacation

Job summary

Target is hiring a Lead Machine Learning Engineer – Merchandising to shape data-driven merchandising decisions at scale. You will design, implement, and optimize production ML solutions while collaborating with data scientists, software engineers and product managers to deliver impactful models and APIs.

You’ll drive code quality, maintainability and documentation, mentor engineers, and help establish best practices for AI/ML in a cloud-native environment, including Docker, Kubernetes and CI/CD.

Qualifications

• 4-year degree in Quantitative disciplines (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) or equivalent experience.
• MS in Computer Science, Applied Mathematics, Statistics, Physics or equivalent work or industry experience in applied machine learning.
• 5+ years of experience in end-to-end machine learning application development, including data pipelining, model optimization, deployment and API design.
• Extensive experience with applied machine learning frameworks and the ability to developing highly distributed machine learning systems at scale.
• Highly proficient in Python programming.
• Strong understanding of CI/CD practices for machine learning systems and ML Ops principles.
• Extensive experience with Google Cloud’s Vertex AI and/or the broader cloud-based ML ecosystem.
• Demonstrated knowledge of various testing frameworks and containerization like Docker and Kubernetes.
• Lead the development of agentic AI solutions that connect data, tools, APIs and business rules into end‑to‑end decisioning workflows.
• Demonstrated experience in REST API design and development.
• Extensive understanding of Big Data technologies including Hadoop, Spark and Kafka.
• Proven ability to collaborate with data scientists, software engineers and product managers to deliver scalable machine learning solutions.
• Excellent communication skills with an ability to tell data‑driven stories through visualizations and narratives.
• Ability to mentor engineers and help establish engineering standards, architecture patterns, and best practices for AI/ML and cloud‑native development.
• Self‑driven, results‑oriented and able to meet tight deadlines.
• Motivated team player who thrives in a collaborative global environment.

Responsibilities

• Designing, implementing, and optimizing production machine learning solutions.
• Collaborating with data scientists, software engineers and product managers to deliver scalable ML solutions.
• Building maintainable, well-tested codebases with documentation.
• Lead development of agentic AI solutions that connect data, tools, APIs and business rules into end‑to‑end decisioning workflows.
• Mentoring engineers and helping establish engineering standards, architecture patterns, and best practices for AI/ML and cloud‑native development.

Skills

Python programming

CI/CD for ML

ML Ops

REST API design

Big Data (Hadoop/Spark/Kafka)

Cloud ML (Vertex AI)

Docker

Kubernetes

Communication

Mentoring engineers

Education

Bachelor's degree in Quantitative disciplines

MS in Computer Science / Applied Mathematics / Statistics / Physics

Tools

Vertex AI

Docker

Kubernetes

Job description

Target is hiring a Lead Machine Learning Engineer – Merchandising to shape data-driven merchandising decisions at scale. You will design, implement, and optimize production ML solutions while collaborating with data scientists, software engineers and product managers to deliver impactful models and APIs.

You’ll drive code quality, maintainability and documentation, mentor engineers, and help establish best practices for AI/ML in a cloud-native environment, including Docker, Kubernetes and CI/CD.