Lead ML Scientist - Personalization & Recommendations

DataJobs; Minneapolis (MN); Hybrid; USD 132,000 - 238,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health benefits

401(k)

Employee discount

Paid vacation

Job summary

Target is seeking a Lead Data Scientist to drive machine learning for recommendations and personalization across digital guest experiences. The role requires technical leadership and collaboration with data scientists, engineers, product managers, and business stakeholders.

The position involves end-to-end model work—from design to production deployment—balancing innovation with reliability in a hybrid Minneapolis-based setting.

Qualifications

• PhD or MS in CS/ML/related quantitative field with 2+ years industry exp.
• 5+ years developing ML solutions at scale for recommendations, personalization, ranking, retrieval, or search.
• Experience with reinforcement learning and/or contextual bandit design and evaluation.
• Strong coding in Python and SQL; experience with PyTorch/JAX.

Responsibilities

• Provide technical leadership for ML systems powering Target's digital recommendations and personalization.
• Collaborate with data scientists, engineers, PMs, and business stakeholders to identify opportunities to improve guest experiences.
• Lead end-to-end model development, evaluation, and deployment at large scale.

Skills

Python

SQL

PyTorch

JAX

Spark

Reinforcement learning

Contextual bandit

Experiment design

Communication

Software engineering

Education

PhD or MS in CS/ML/Statistics/OR

Tools

PyTorch

JAX

Spark

Job description

Target is seeking a Lead Data Scientist to drive machine learning for recommendations and personalization across digital guest experiences. The role requires technical leadership and collaboration with data scientists, engineers, product managers, and business stakeholders.

The position involves end-to-end model work—from design to production deployment—balancing innovation with reliability in a hybrid Minneapolis-based setting.