Staff Data Scientist [T500-27365]

About Albertsons Companies Inc.: As a leading food and drug retailer in the United States, Albertsons Companies, Inc. operates over 2,200 stores across 35 states and the District of Columbia. Our well-known banners across the United States, including Albertsons, Safeway, Vons, Jewel-Osco and others, serve more than 36 million U.S customers each week. We build and shape technology solutions that solve customers’ problems every day, making things easier for them when they shop with us online or in a store. We have made bold, strategic moves to migrate and modernize our core foundational capabilities, positioning ourselves as the first fully cloud-based grocery tech company in the industry. Our success is built on a one-team approach, driven by the desire to understand and enhance the customer experience. By constantly pushing the boundaries of retail, we are transforming shopping into an experience that is easy, efficient, fun and engaging.

About Albertsons Companies India: At Albertsons Companies India, we're not just pushing the boundaries of technology and retail innovation, we're cultivating a space where ideas flourish and careers thrive. Our workplace in India is a vital extension of the Albertsons Companies Inc. workforce and important to the next phase in the company’s technology journey to support millions of customers’ lives every day. At the Albertsons Companies India, we are raising the bar to grow across Technology & Engineering, AI, Digital and other company functions, and transform a 165-year-old American retailer. At Albertsons Companies India associates collaborate directly with international teams, enhancing decision-making processes and organizational agility through exciting and pivotal projects. Your work will make history and help millions of lives each day come together around the joys of food and inspire their well-being.

Roles & responsibilities:

• Albertsons Companies is transforming how we operate from Source to Table—reimagining planning, ordering, inventory, and execution as a deeply connected, AI-enabled ecosystem. In this role, you will own the technical roadmap for an AI-native Data Science organization that builds the predictive, prescriptive, and agentic intelligence powering our next-generation supply chain and store execution platforms.
• You will define and implement the overarching data science and AI architecture and technical strategy for a team of data scientists that will build data science and AI capabilities to optimize operations, processes and capabilities in Source to Table transformation area that would include 1) end to end demand forecasting; 2) inventory optimization to minimize out of stocks; 3) store and warehouse replenishment to minimize supply chain waste; 4) Agentic AI frameworks to augment and automate planning and execution capabilities.
• You will be hands-on with design, implementations and deployment of sciences and AI models to convert multiple point solutions to connected data science and AI solutions at scale.
• Stay current with the latest advancements in data science, machine learning, and AI technologies. Evaluate and implement new tools and technologies to enhance the data science architecture and continuously improve analytical capabilities. Drive innovation through research, experimentation, and prototyping.
• Build and scale “AI-native” components: models + agents + reasoning layers. Build a portfolio that includes:
• Lead partnerships with cross-functional teams, including product, engineering and domain experts, to deliver analytical, predictive and decision-support solutions for supply chain and fulfillment-related functions and capabilities. Interface with cross functional leaders and represent point of views from data science to drive measurable success
• Recruit, build and lead high-performing teams of data scientists in a technical capacity. Inspire and deliver data science innovations that fuel the growth of the business
• Provide technical and thought leadership in data science and AI. Guide architectures, data science models, machine learning algorithms and engineering best practices. Provide technical mentorship and guidance to the data science team.
• Use machine learning and AI to solve real customer problems, power the next generation experiences for large scale applications in real time. Deliver breakthrough benefits to customers using personalized, enriched, and derived data from a range of sources
• Drive meetings and lead discussions. Prioritize projects across the team and allocate resources to meet business and team goals
• Communicate sophisticated machine learning and modeling solutions and capabilities effectively with intuitive visualizations for business stakeholders
• Core ML/optimization models (forecasting, bias correction, replenishment, shrink/markdown, execution signals).
• Agentic AI frameworks that augment and automate planning and execution—human-in-the-loop where needed, autonomous where safe/valuable.
• LLM-powered explanation and decision support that translates outputs into natural language.

Experience Required:

• Advanced degree in a STEM field like CS, DS, Engineering, Statistics, Math, etc. is preferred, or equivalent experience. PhD strongly preferred in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Statistics, Operations Research, Applied Mathematics, Industrial Engineering, or a closely related quantitative field (or equivalent depth of research + applied production experience).
• 9+ years of industry experience in applying data science: experimental design, machine learning, deep learning algorithms, operations research, applied mathematical optimization, etc., at scale
• Specific experience and skills working in the retail and grocery industry is preferred, including in the areas of supply chain optimization, merchandising and pricing, digital/ecommerce, fulfillment, and customer and marketing analytics and intelligence capabilities using data science, AI and machine learning tools and techniques
• You will bring product thinking and deep expertise in systems design to this role.
• You will bring an understanding of how planning and operations connects with customer related work from a data science perspective.
• You would have prior experience as a consultant and bring a service mindset to the work of business transformation.
• You will be equally comfortable interacting with scientists, engineers, product, and business clients.
• Business acumen and retail understanding is critical.
• Getting stuff done is critical.
• Has to be able to clearly set a vision to partners for the art of the possible.
• Track record of guiding teams through unstructured technical problems to deliver business impact. Ability to translate high-level business objectives into action
• Skilled at running cross-functional relationships and communicating with leadership across multiple organizations
• Experience and proficiency in Python, SQL
• Hands-on experience in building data science solutions and production-ready systems on big data platforms such as Snowflake, Spark, Hadoop
• Experience with Data Engineering, MLOps, and Model Life Cycle Management.
• Excellent communications skills, with the ability to synthesize, simplify and explain complex problems to different audience
• Experience with logistics and supply chain management systems, Snowflake, Azure Databricks is a plus
• Proven track record of leading data science projects and teams to architect and deploy data science solutions at scale