Lead Machine Learning Engineer – Item RecSys

Target

Lead Machine Learning Engineer creating personalized recommendations for Target's online platforms. Designing, implementing, and optimizing machine learning solutions within a diverse tech team.

Posted 6/2/2026full-timeSunnyvale • California, Minnesota • 🇺🇸 United StatesSenior💰 $132,000 - $286,000 per yearWebsite

Tech Stack

Tools & technologies

AzureCloudHadoopKafkaPythonPyTorchRayScikit-LearnSparkTensorflow

About the role

Key responsibilities & impact

join a Data Sciences team responsible for creating personalized recommendations on Target.com and the Target App
play a crucial role in designing, implementing, and optimizing production machine learning solutions
conduct training sessions
present work to technical and non-technical peers/leaders
build knowledge on business priorities/strategic goals and leverage this knowledge while building requirements and solutions for each business need

Requirements

What you’ll need

4-year degree in Quantitative disciplines (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) or equivalent experience
MS in Computer Science, Applied Mathematics, Statistics, Physics or equivalent work or industry experience
5 plus years' of experience in end-to-end Machine Learning application development, including data pipelining, model optimization, deployment, and API design
Highly proficient programming in Python
Experience with ML frameworks such as Pytorch, TensorFlow, xgboost, sklearn, and ONNX
Experience with one or more cloud ML services such as Vertex AI, Azure ML or Sagemaker
Experience using distributed training frameworks like Spark, Ray, TensorFlow Distributed
Experience with serving frameworks such as TorchServe/TensorFlow or Serving/FastAPI
Good understanding of Big Data tech, specifically Hadoop ecosystem – Spark, Kafka, Hive, etc.
Experience creating and maintaining CI/CD pipelines for automated model deployment and testing
Work in partnership with applied data scientists, software engineers and product managers to understand the business requirements - translate to machine learning solutions at scale
Excellent communication skills with the ability to clearly tell data driven stories through appropriate visualizations, graphs, and narratives
Self-driven and results oriented; able to meet tight timelines
Motivated, team player with ability to collaborate effectively across global team
Experience in mentoring the junior team members ML Ops skillsets and career development

Benefits

Comp & perks

comprehensive health benefits and programs, which may include medical, vision, dental, life insurance and more
401(k)
employee discount
short term disability
long term disability
paid sick leave
paid national holidays
paid vacation

ATS Keywords

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Applicant Tracking System Keywords

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Hard Skills & Tools

Machine Learningdata pipeliningmodel optimizationdeploymentAPI designPythonPytorchTensorFlowxgboostsklearn

Soft Skills

communication skillsself-drivenresults orientedteam playercollaborationmentoringtrainingpresentation skillsbusiness acumenproblem solving