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 .

JOIN TARGET AS A PRINCIPAL DATA SCIENTIST – SEARCH AND BROWSE

As a Principal Data Scientist – Search and Browse you’ll:

• Define the long-term technical vision and organizational roadmap for Search, Browse, and AI-driven discovery systems
• Lead architecture strategy for large-scale retrieval, ranking, semantic search, and GenAI systems operating at massive scale
• Drive innovation across transformers, LLMs, RAG architectures, multi-stage ranking systems, personalization, conversational commerce, and agentic AI
• Architect search and retrieval systems for external LLM and agentic search ecosystem integration
• Define the future evolution of semantic retrieval, conversational search, and zero-shot discovery systems
• Influence organization-wide strategy across relevance, experimentation, evaluation, ML infrastructure, and AI product investments
• Lead highly ambiguous, multi-quarter initiatives involving Product, Engineering, Applied Science, Infrastructure, and executive stakeholders
• Establish scalable ML architecture patterns, experimentation standards, and operational best practices across multiple teams
• Drive foundational investments and technical direction across Search, Retrieval Infrastructure, and AI-powered discovery platforms
• Balance customer experience, business impact, system reliability, latency, scalability, and infrastructure cost at enterprise scale
• Mentor Lead scientists and technical leaders across the organization
• Represent the organization in executive reviews and drive alignment on major technical and product decisions
• Influence technical direction and investment priorities across multiple teams and organizations

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

About you:

• PhD or MS in Computer Science, Statistics, Applied Mathematics, Physics or related quantitative discipline
• 8+ years of industry experience building and scaling ML systems for Search, Recommendation, Personalization, Ads, or AI platforms
• Strong experience with semantic retrieval, vector search, RAG systems, conversational search or agentic AI systems
• Deep expertise in retrieval/ranking architectures, recommendation systems, semantic search, NLP/LLMs, experimentation and ML infrastructure (VertexAI)
• Demonstrated Python programming and technical ML problem-solving skills
• Proven experience defining architecture and long-term strategy for large-scale production AI systems
• Experience operating large-scale online systems with strict latency, scalability, reliability, and infrastructure cost requirements
• Strong understanding of retrieval/ranking system tradeoffs, experimentation strategy, and operational excellence
• Strong track record driving measurable business impact through ML innovation
• Experience leading cross-functional initiatives spanning multiple teams or organizations
• Ability to influence executive stakeholders and drive organizational technical direction
• Exceptional communication, technical leadership, strategic thinking, and mentoring skills

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 in Sunnyvale, CA or 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 if you are curious to learn more about Minnesota.