Lead Data Scientist - Product Availability

The pay range is $128,000.00 - $231,000.00

Pay is based on several factors which vary based on position. These include labor markets and in some instances may include education, work experience and certifications. In addition to your pay, Target cares about and invests in you as a team member, so that you can take care of yourself and your family. Target offers eligible team members and their dependents comprehensive health benefits and programs, which may include medical, vision, dental, life insurance and more, to help you and your family take care of your whole selves. Other benefits for eligible team members include 401(k), employee discount, short term disability, long term disability, paid sick leave, paid national holidays, and paid vacation. Find competitive benefits from financial and education to well-being and beyond at https://corporate.target.com/careers/benefits.

JOIN TARGET AS A LEAD DATA SCIENTIST – PRODUCT AVAILABILITY

About us:
Working at Target means helping all families discover the joy of everyday life. We bring that vision to life through our values and culture. Learn more about Target here.

A role with Target Data Sciences means the chance to help develop and manage state of the art predictive algorithms that use data at scale to automate and optimize decisions at scale. Whether you join our Search, Personalization, Generative AI, Supply Chain Optimization or Machine Learning teams, you’ll be challenged to harness Target’s impressive data breadth to build the algorithms that power solutions our partners in Digital Marketing, Supply Chain Optimization, Search and Personalization rely on. Every Scientist on Target’s Data Sciences teams can expect data modelling, software/product development of highly performant code for Model Performance, to elevate Target’s culture, and apply retail domain knowledge.

As a Lead Data Scientist in Product Availability, you’ll influence by interacting within the Data Sciences team, perform within the scale and scope of your role by implementing solutions, and contribute to Target’s culture. Through your understanding of the foundations and working principles of machine learning algorithms, linear algebra, probability theory, statistics and optimization theory - you will perform data exploration and analysis (look at distributions, find anomalies, create simple visualizations, etc.) and implement algorithmic solution given specifications in applied ML, while adhering to best practices in model development. We will look to you to understand and actively follow foundational programming principles (best practices, know about unit tests, code organization, basics of CI/CD etc.) and create a well-maintainable and tested codebase with relevant documentation. You will get the opportunity to develop in one or more approved programming languages (Python, R, Java), and learn and adhere to best practices in data analysis and data understanding.

As you follow agile processes, you will implement prototypes for individual components of software or data science solutions and understand and leverage basic data structures and algorithms in implementing solutions. Leverage your high-level understanding in business domain to gain knowledge of high-level Target business priorities, strategic goals and their impact, as well as details of the specific business sub-problem you are focused on. You will collaborate with peers on their product, document and present work to peers as well as participate in code reviews and gain broader understanding of different components within the application. The exciting part of retail and Data Science? It’s always changing and scaling!

Core responsibilities of this job are described within this job description. Job duties may change at any time due to business needs.

Essential functions:

• Interpret business partner needs, design creative/versatile solutions and effectively communicate results to business partners thereby driving the adoption of analytical approaches
• Provide thought leadership on technical approach – alternate techniques and/or thought processes that would ensure projects deliver on business partner needs
• Lead prioritization and road-mapping of productionizing the product and future product enhancements
• Gather and analyze data to solve and address highly complex business problems and evaluate scenarios to make predictions on future outcomes and support decision making
• Design and drive the creation of new standards and best practices for data modeling
• Partner with cross functional teams to deliver on business objectives
• Provide financial insight and guidance to business partners and leadership
• Champion team development by mentoring and coaching peers and junior team members, fostering a culture of continuous learning, inclusion, and growth.
• Drive efficiencies across analytics and reporting processes using automation
• Deliver meaningful insights to business teams, partners and stakeholders that support meaningful decisions.

About you:

• 4-year degree in Quantitative disciplines (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) or equivalent experience
• 5+ years of professional experience in applied data sciences or equivalent industry experience
• Good knowledge and experience developing ML algorithms, optimization, simulation and statistical models
• Strong analytical thinking skills. Ability to creatively solve business problems, innovating new approaches where required
• Strong hands-on programming skills in Python, SQL, Hadoop/Hive. Additional knowledge of Spark, Scala, R, Java desired but not mandatory
• Experience leveraging ML Ops best practices/tools to deploy and manage production level ML pipelines
• Good working knowledge of mathematical and statistical concepts, MILP, algorithms and computational complexity
• Passion for solving interesting and relevant real-world problems using a data science approach
• Experience in implementing advanced statistical techniques like regression, clustering, PCA, forecasting (time series) etc.
• Able to produce reasonable documents/narrative suggesting actionable insights
• Excellent communication skills. Ability to clearly tell data driven stories through appropriate visualizations, graphs and narratives
• Self-driven and results oriented; able to meet tight timelines
• Strong team player with ability to collaborate effectively across geographies/time zones

This position will operate as a Hybrid/Flex for Your Day work arrangement based on Target’s needs. A Hybrid/Flex for Your Day work arrangement means the team member’s core role will need to be performed both onsite at the Target HQ MN location the role is assigned to and virtually, depending upon what your role, team and tasks require for that day. Work duties cannot be performed outside of the country of the primary work location, unless otherwise prescribed by Target. Click here if you are curious to learn more about Minnesota.

Benefits Eligibility

Please paste this url into your preferred browser to learn about benefits eligibility for this role: https://tgt.biz/BenefitsForYou_E

Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)

In compliance with state and federal laws, Target will make reasonable accommodations for applicants with disabilities. If a reasonable accommodation is needed to participate in the job application or interview process, please reach out to [email protected]. Non-accommodation-related requests, such as application follow-ups or technical issues, will not be addressed through this channel.  

Application deadline is : 11/27/2025