Senior Data Scientist – Artificial Intelligence R&D

Caterpillar Inc.

Senior Data Scientist advancing applied AI systems for Caterpillar Inc. in AI Research & Development team, delivering high-impact Proofs of Concept and exploring long-term research opportunities.

Posted 4/30/2026full-timeChicago • Illinois • 🇺🇸 United StatesSenior💰 $112,710 - $183,140 per yearWebsite

Tech Stack

Tools & technologies

AWSAzureCloudNumpyPandasPythonPyTorch

About the role

Key responsibilities & impact

Design and execute AI experiments across the full model lifecycle: hypothesis formulation, data preparation, model development, evaluation, and iteration, maintaining research rigor in an ambiguous, fast-moving environment.
Develop, fine-tune, and benchmark LLMs and multimodal AI models (text, vision, speech), including systematic evaluation of quality, latency, cost, and safety tradeoffs across model variants and providers.
Explore and optimize knowledge retrieval systems (RAG pipelines, vector databases, hybrid search) and agentic workflows, ensuring relevance, accuracy, and scalability for enterprise use cases.
Lead data preparation workstreams for model training, fine-tuning, and validation, including dataset curation, labeling strategy, synthetic data generation, and quality assurance.
Instrument AI systems for observability and reproducibility using experiment tracking frameworks (e.g., Langfuse, MLflow), maintaining clear documentation of model versions, evaluation datasets, and performance baselines.
Translate research findings into production-ready prototypes, collaborating with Engineering and Product teams to define technical requirements, integration paths, and deployment readiness criteria.
Evaluate emerging AI capabilities and tools (open-source and commercial), providing structured assessments and recommendations to inform the team's technology strategy.
Mentor and coach junior Data Scientists, establishing best practices for experimentation, model evaluation, and responsible AI development across the team.
Communicate insights and results to technical and non-technical stakeholders, including product managers, engineers, and senior leadership, with clarity and business impact framing.

Requirements

What you’ll need

Bachelor’s, Master’s, or PhD degree in Data Science, Computer Science, Machine Learning, Statistics, Applied Mathematics, Engineering, or a closely related technical field.
Proven experience building and deploying advanced ML models beyond traditional analytics use cases.
Extensive proficiency in Python (NumPy, Pandas, PyTorch, LangChain, etc.); ability to write clean, maintainable, production-oriented code and contribute to shared AI infrastructure.
Strong hands-on experience with generative AI, large language models, deep neural networks, and modern ML frameworks.
Demonstrated experience designing evaluation frameworks and benchmarks for AI systems.
Familiarity with AI infrastructure, cloud platforms (AWS, Azure), and scalable experimentation environments.
Advanced experience with version control, experiment tracking, and collaborative development (e.g., Git-based workflows).
Experience working in Agile, cross-functional product development environments.
Prior exposure to industrial, manufacturing, heavy equipment, or complex physical systems is a strong plus, but not required.

Benefits

Comp & perks

Medical, dental, and vision benefits*
Paid time off plan (Vacation, Holidays, Volunteer, etc.)*
401(k) savings plans*
Health Savings Account (HSA)*
Flexible Spending Accounts (FSAs)*
Health Lifestyle Programs*
Employee Assistance Program*
Voluntary Benefits and Employee Discounts*
Career Development*
Incentive bonus*
Disability benefits
Life Insurance
Parental leave
Adoption benefits
Tuition Reimbursement

ATS Keywords

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Applicant Tracking System Keywords

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Hard Skills & Tools

AI experimentsLLMsmultimodal AI modelsknowledge retrieval systemsdata preparationmodel developmentexperiment trackingPythongenerative AIdeep neural networks

Soft Skills

mentoringcommunicationcollaborationproblem-solvingleadership