Principal Data Scientist (AI)

Location: Onsite in Bentonville, Arkansas, or Sunnyvale, California, United States

Annual salary: $110,000–$220,000 in Bentonville or $143,000–$286,000 in Sunnyvale, plus potential performance bonuses and stock compensation.

Company

Walmart Data Ventures powers data and AI platforms for Walmart’s suppliers, using insights and advanced technology to improve customer, merchant, and supplier outcomes.

What you will do

• Lead data science initiatives across recommendations, customer voice, market research, product innovation, segmentation, forecasting, measurement, and decision intelligence.
• Frame ambiguous business questions as testable hypotheses with clear metrics and decision criteria.
• Build, validate, deploy, monitor, and improve predictive, causal, and machine learning solutions.
• Design experiments and causal measurement approaches, including A/B testing, uplift modeling, difference-in-differences, and synthetic control.
• Partner with agentic AI teams to answer questions about measurement, impact, and causal drivers.
• Mentor data science team members and communicate analytical insights to product, engineering, and executive stakeholders.

Requirements

• Deep expertise in data science, statistics, machine learning, experimentation, measurement, and causal inference.
• Strong Python skills and experience building production-quality data science solutions.
• Experience deploying, monitoring, and improving models or decision tools with engineering teams.
• Ability to turn ambiguous business problems into scalable analytical plans and measurable outcomes.
• At least 5 years of analytics experience with a bachelor’s degree, 3 years with a master’s degree, or 7 years of relevant experience.
• Strong business judgment, communication, mentoring, and analytical storytelling skills.

Nice to have

• Experience with agentic AI architectures, systems, and evaluation patterns.
• Experience using AI-assisted coding and engineering tools.
• Experience with Spark, Scala, R, scikit-learn, TensorFlow, or Torch.
• PhD, research publications, or active peer-review experience in a related field.
• Knowledge of WCAG 2.2 AA, assistive technologies, and digital accessibility practices.

Culture & Benefits

• Medical, vision, and dental coverage.
• 401(k), stock purchase opportunities, company-paid life insurance, and potential stock compensation.
• Paid time off, sick leave, parental leave, family care leave, bereavement leave, jury duty leave, and voting leave.
• Disability coverage, company discounts, military leave pay, and adoption and surrogacy expense reimbursement.
• Walmart-paid education benefits covering tuition, books, and fees for eligible programs.