Manager, Data Science (Personalization & Recommendation Systems) (Remote)

Kohl's; Menomonee Falls (WI); On-site; USD 140,000 - 210,000; Full time

Job summary

Kohl's is seeking a Manager, Data Science to lead a data science team and partner across product, engineering and design to drive data-driven decisions. You will guide end-to-end ML projects, design experiments, and optimize metrics for business impact.

The role emphasizes leadership in a high-scale environment with real-time personalization and advanced ranking systems to improve experiences across digital channels.

Qualifications

• Expertise in developing and deploying state-of-the-art ML algorithms for complex business models.
• Proficiency with Python, R, Spark, SQL and cloud platforms (GCP).
• Strong problem-solving with a product development mindset.
• Experience proposing rapid experiments and iterating from results.
• Proven leadership guiding teams through unstructured technical problems.
• Bachelor’s or Master’s in a quantitative field; 5+ years data science experience.
• 2+ years of managerial or leadership experience in data science.

Responsibilities

• Attract, retain, develop, manage, coach and assess data scientists in a balanced team.
• Collaborate with product, engineering and design leads to leverage data-driven insights.
• Lead end-to-end data science projects from problem formulation to model deployment.
• Oversee experimental design to answer targeted questions.
• Drive continuous improvement of key business metrics within the team.
• Translate data science outputs into business value and outcomes.
• Maintain strong business partnerships to drive adoption of data science capabilities.
• Stay current on trends to identify high ROI opportunities.

Skills

Personalization systems

Transformer models

LLM models

Collaborative filtering

Vector search

ANN methods

GPU training

Production ML

Real-time personalization

Education

Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in data science or related

Master’s degree and/or Ph.D.

Tools

Python

R

Spark

SQL

GCP

Camera?

Job description

About The Role

As Manager, Data Science, you will manage a data science team and work with cross-functional partners to solve business challenges and promote data-driven decision-making with advanced data analysis and machine learning.

What You’ll Do

• Attract, retain, develop, manage, coach and assess data scientists in a balanced team


• Work with product, engineering and design leads and leverage data-driven insights to make decisions, set goals, prioritize work and achieve team objectives


• Lead end-to-end data science projects from problem formulation to model deployment, ensuring high-quality deliverables that meet business needs


• Oversee the design of experiments that answer targeted questions


• Identify and drive continuous improvement of key business metrics within assigned team


• Translate data science outputs into business outcomes and value delivered


• Maintain strong business partner relationships to gain cross-organizational alignment, spur adoption and usage of data science capabilities and drive business outcomes


• Remain current on the latest trends and developments in data science and technology and identify areas that offer the greatest return on investment


• Additional tasks may be assigned

Addendum

Personalization & Recommendation Systems

Accountabilities

• Design and support deployment of machine learning models to power personalized experiences across digital channels (e.g., homepage, PDP, cart, campaigns)


• Build and optimize recommendation and ranking systems balancing relevance, discovery, and business objectives (e.g., conversion, revenue)


• Develop multi-stage ranking approaches, including candidate generation and re-ranking


• Address cold-start and long-tail challenges in large product catalogs


• Partner with engineering to support real-time personalization and scalable deployment

Skills & Experience

• Experience with personalization & recommendation systems, search, or ranking problems at scale of millions of customers and products


• Experience in developing sequential, transformer models and utilizing LLM models in production


• Understanding of collaborative filtering and learning-to-rank methods


• Experience optimizing models for GPU / distributed training


• Familiarity with large-scale datasets and production ML systems


• Exposure to real-time or low-latency serving environments


• Experience with vector search / ANN methods (e.g., FAISS, ScaNN) preferred


• Experience with delivering end to end customized ML models in production environment

Required

• Expertise in developing and deploying state-of-the-art algorithms using machine learning and statistical and optimization methods to power various aspects of highly complex business models and deliver value


• Expert in using modern analytics tools, programming languages, and cloud platforms such as Python, R, Spark, SQL, GCP, etc.


• Strong problem-solving skills with an emphasis on product development


• Experience proposing rapid experiments to test the efficacy of new strategies or initiatives and iterating quickly based on results


• Proven success guiding teams through unstructured technical problems


• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Data Science, Computer Science, Statistics, Applied Mathematics, or equivalent quantitative field


• 5+ years (or 2+ years with a Master’s degree) of progressively complex data science experience


• 2+ years of managerial or leadership experience in data science or analytics organizations

Preferred

• Master's degree and/or Ph.D.


• Retail experience


• Marketing models