Principal Data Scientist

Why choose us?

Join us for an exciting opportunity at Albertsons Companies, where innovation and customer service go hand-in-hand. We are looking for someone who wants to make an impact by leading, innovating, and contributing to the growth of a company that values great service and lasting customer relationships. This position offers the chance to work in a fast-paced, dynamic environment that’s constantly evolving. Building the future of food and well-being starts with you. The role is based in Pleasanton, CA.

Responsibilities

• Lead the design and development of end-to-end deep learning solutions, from problem formulation and model architecture selection through deployment and continuous optimization within the Databricks Lakehouse platform.
• Serve as the technical authority for Graph Neural Networks (GNNs), graph representation learning, and advanced deep learning architectures, driving innovation and adoption across high-impact business problems.
• Architect scalable machine learning and deep learning platforms, establishing reusable frameworks, standards, and best practices for model development, deployment, and lifecycle management.
• Define and implement robust evaluation, explainability, and model governance frameworks to ensure model quality, transparency, and business impact.
• Lead the development and optimization of distributed training, large-scale data processing, and inference systems using Spark and modern AI infrastructure.
• Drive the fine-tuning, adaptation, and productization of foundation models, large language models (LLMs), and other advanced AI architectures leveraging enterprise data assets.
• Partner with Data Science, Engineering, Product, and Business leaders to translate strategic opportunities into scalable AI solutions that deliver measurable value.
• Influence AI strategy, technical roadmaps, and architectural decisions while mentoring senior practitioners and advancing organizational AI capabilities.

Requirements

Education

• PhD in Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Applied Mathematics, Statistics, Operations Research, or a related quantitative field strongly preferred.
• Master's degree with exceptional equivalent industry research and leadership experience may be considered.

Experience

• 12+ years of experience developing and deploying machine learning and deep learning solutions in production environments.
• 8+ years of experience leading advanced deep learning research, experimentation, and enterprise-scale implementation efforts.
• Demonstrated experience operating as a Principal Scientist, Principal AI Engineer, Distinguished Engineer, Research Lead, or equivalent senior technical individual contributor.

Technical Expertise

• Deep Expertise In Deep Learning:
  • Graph Neural Networks (GNNs)
  • Graph Representation Learning
  • Graph Embeddings
  • Knowledge Graphs
  • Graph Transformers
  • Foundation Models and LLMs
• Expert-level hands-on proficiency in PyTorch and/or TensorFlow.
• Extensive experience building large-scale distributed machine learning solutions using:
  • Apache Spark
  • PySpark
  • Databricks Lakehouse
  • Delta Lake
  • MLflow
  • Unity Catalog
• Expert knowledge of model training, optimization, serving, and lifecycle management across distributed GPU environments.
• Proven experience designing enterprise-grade inference systems balancing accuracy, latency, reliability, scalability, and operational cost.
• Advanced proficiency in Python and machine learning ecosystems including NumPy, Pandas, Scikit-learn, PyTorch, TensorFlow, and related frameworks.

Research & Thought Leadership

• Strong publication record in leading machine learning, artificial intelligence, graph machine learning, or data science conferences and journals.
• Proven track record translating advanced research into measurable business outcomes.
• Demonstrated technical leadership through patents, publications, conference presentations, open-source contributions, or recognized industry thought leadership.

Preferred Qualifications

• Deep expertise in advanced graph learning architectures including:
  • Graph Convolutional Networks (GCNs)
  • GraphSAGE
  • Graph Attention Networks (GATs)
  • Heterogeneous Graph Neural Networks
  • Temporal Graph Networks
  • Graph Transformers
• Experience building and deploying LLM, generative AI, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), multimodal AI, and agentic AI solutions.
• Experience operating large-scale AI platforms on AWS, Azure, and/or Google Cloud Platform.
• Experience with Ray, Kubernetes, Docker, Nvidia CUDA ecosystem, Triton Inference Server, and distributed GPU infrastructure.
• Experience designing streaming inference architectures using Kafka, Structured Streaming, and real-time decisioning systems.
• Experience leading enterprise AI transformations across multiple business units.
• Background in retail, e-commerce, supply chain, customer intelligence, recommendations, fraud detection, network optimization, or large-scale graph applications.
• Recognized industry subject matter expert with demonstrated influence beyond immediate organizational boundaries.

Benefits

• Competitive wages paid weekly.
• Access to up to 50% of your earned wages before payday, via our partnership with Stream.
• Associate discounts.
• Health and financial well-being benefits for eligible associates (Medical, Dental, 401k, and more).
• Time off (vacation, holidays, sick pay).
• Leaders invested in your training, career growth, and development.
• An inclusive work environment with talented colleagues who reflect the communities we serve.