Principal Data Scientist – Applied AI

Walmart

Principal Data Scientist on the Applied AI team creating production AI systems for HR workflows. Collaborating with stakeholders to enhance HR operations and deliver scalable AI solutions.

Posted 5/27/2026full-timeBentonville • California • 🇺🇸 United StatesLead💰 $110,000 - $220,000 per yearWebsite

Tech Stack

Tools & technologies

PythonSQL

About the role

Key responsibilities & impact

Partner directly with HR business stakeholders to identify the highest-leverage workflows for AI transformation.
Design, build, and ship production AI systems including agentic workflows, LLM applications, and supporting infrastructure.
Build evaluation frameworks that measure model and system performance against real business outcomes.
Translate ambiguous business problems into prototypes quickly, then iterate to durable production solutions.
Write production-grade code and collaborate on engineering practices that take AI from prototype to scaled deployment.
Mentor team members on AI engineering, system design, and applied research methods.
Ensure responsible AI practices, data governance, and security standards across the project lifecycle.

Requirements

What you’ll need

Extensive experience building and deploying AI systems in production, including LLM applications or agentic workflows.
Strong software engineering fundamentals with proficiency in Python and modern AI tooling and frameworks.
Hands-on experience with evaluation methods for AI systems, including offline and online testing approaches.
Working knowledge of data engineering, database technologies including SQL, and the infrastructure that supports production AI.
Ability to translate ambiguous business problems into shipped solutions in close partnership with non-technical stakeholders.
Track record of moving fast from prototype to production while maintaining quality and reliability.
Effective communication skills to align technical work with business priorities.

Benefits

Comp & perks

Health benefits include medical, vision and dental coverage.
Financial benefits include 401(k), stock purchase and company-paid life insurance.
Paid time off benefits include PTO (including sick leave), parental leave, family care leave, bereavement, jury duty, and voting.
Other benefits include short-term and long-term disability, company discounts, Military Leave Pay, adoption and surrogacy expense reimbursement, and more.
Education benefit program for full-time and part-time associates with tuition, books, and fees completely paid for by Walmart.

ATS Keywords

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Applicant Tracking System Keywords

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Hard Skills & Tools

AI systemsLLM applicationsagentic workflowsPythonevaluation methodsoffline testingonline testingdata engineeringSQLproduction deployment

Soft Skills

mentoringcommunicationcollaborationproblem-solvingiterative developmentstakeholder engagementquality assurancereliabilityadaptabilityalignment with business priorities