Principal Data Scientist: AI-Driven Search & LLMs

Target; United States; Hybrid; USD 168,000 - 356,000; 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 seeking a Principal Data Scientist for Search and Browse to define the long-term vision and drive AI-driven discovery systems at scale. You will lead architecture for large-scale retrieval, ranking, and semantic search, guiding transformers, LLMs, and RAG architectures.

You will mentor teams, influence executive decisions, and partner across Product, Engineering, and Data Science to deliver measurable business impact.

Qualifications

• PhD or MS in related field preferred.
• 8+ years of experience building and scaling ML systems.
• Experience with semantic retrieval and LLMs.
• Proven architecture and long-term strategy for large-scale AI systems.

Responsibilities

• Define the long-term technical vision and roadmap for Search, Browse, and AI-driven discovery.
• Lead architecture strategy for large-scale retrieval, ranking, and semantic search.
• Drive innovation across transformers, LLMs, RAG, and multi-stage ranking systems.
• Architect search systems for external LLM and agentic search ecosystem integration.
• Lead cross-functional initiatives spanning Product, Engineering, and Data science teams.
• Mentor scientists and technical leads; communicate decisions to executives.

Skills

Semantic retrieval

Vector search

RAG systems

Conversational AI

ML infrastructure

Python

Leadership

Mentoring

Communication

Education

PhD or MS in CS/Statistics/Math/Physics

Tools

VertexAI

Job description

Target is seeking a Principal Data Scientist for Search and Browse to define the long-term vision and drive AI-driven discovery systems at scale. You will lead architecture for large-scale retrieval, ranking, and semantic search, guiding transformers, LLMs, and RAG architectures.

You will mentor teams, influence executive decisions, and partner across Product, Engineering, and Data Science to deliver measurable business impact.