Job Title:  Sr Data Scientist

What You Need To Know

Shape a remarkable future with us. Build a career working for an industry leader that truly invests in their people – and equips them with leading technology, continuous learning, and the ability to bring their best selves to work. As the premier wine and spirits distributor, Southern Glazer’s isn't just one of Forbes’ Top Private Companies; it's a family-owned business with deep roots dating back to 1933.

The reputation of Southern Glazer’s is well-established, and it's no surprise that we are regularly recognized for our culture. Southern Glazer’s has been recognized by Newsweek as one of America’s Greatest Workplaces for Inclusion and Diversity, as well as for Women and Parents and Families. These accolades speak volumes about our commitment to creating a supportive and inclusive culture of belonging for all employees.

As a full-time employee, you can choose from a wide-ranging menu of our Top Shelf Benefits, including comprehensive medical and prescription drug coverage, dental and vision plans, tax-saving Flexible Spending Accounts, disability coverage, life insurance plans, and a 401(k) plan. We also offer tuition assistance, a wellness program, parental leave, vacation accrual, paid sick leave, and more.

By joining Southern Glazer’s, you would be part of a team that values excellence, innovation, and community. This is more than just a job – it's an opportunity to build the future of beverage distribution and grow with a company that truly cares about its people.

Overview

The Senior Data Scientist – AI Personalization is responsible for developing and deploying cutting-edge machine learning and artificial intelligence solutions for the Next Best Action and Recommendation Initiatives that drive business growth and enhance sales and customer experiences. This role focuses on building sophisticated recommendation systems for sales and ecommerce platforms and creating intelligent sales execution agents powered by large language models. The Senior Data Scientist transforms complex business requirements into scalable AI solutions, leading projects from conception through production deployment while ensuring alignment with strategic business objectives and driving measurable impact across digital commerce and sales operations.

Primary Responsibilities

• Design and implement advanced recommendation systems for sales and ecommerce applications, including item similarity models, product substitution recommendations, add-to-cart suggestions, and ready-to-reorder predictions
• Develop and optimize embedding models, ranking/retrieval systems, and collaborative filtering techniques including two-tower architectures and matrix factorization
• Create and maintain LLM-based sales execution agents with tool calling capabilities and RAG systems to provide intelligent product recommendations and account-specific insights
• Gather, process, and ensure quality of large-scale datasets while performing comprehensive EDA to identify high-value patterns and business opportunities
• Design and maintain scalable ML pipelines for real-time inference and batch processing with robust model monitoring and evaluation frameworks
• Guide cross-functional teams in AI-driven initiatives, creating compelling visualizations and presentations to communicate model performance and business impact
• Plan work within an agile framework by breaking out big initiatives into smaller, attainable tasks or experiments that can be assigned throughout the team
• Provide strategic insights and recommendations based on AI analysis to influence executive decision-making and mentor junior team members
• Stay current with latest AI/ML developments and contribute to AI strategy roadmap, identifying new opportunities for AI application in beverage industry commerce

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor's, Master's, or PhD degree in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Mathematics, Statistics, or related field; Master's degree preferred
• Typically 5+ years of relevant experience in AI/ML, with specific focus on recommendation systems, natural language processing, or large language models
• Proven experience with embedding models, ranking/retrieval systems, and collaborative filtering techniques
• Hands-on experience with large language models, fine-tuning, and prompt engineering
• Experience building and deploying agentic AI systems with tool calling capabilities
• Solid understanding of Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) architectures and implementation
• Experience managing and delivering complex AI/ML products from research to production
• Native-level proficiency/fluent in English

Preferred Skills

Technical Expertise:

• Deep knowledge of modern recommendation system architectures, transformer models, and large language model fine-tuning
• Proficiency in Python with ML frameworks (PyTorch, TensorFlow, MLflow), LLM tools and frameworks (LangChain, OpenAI Agents), and vector databases
• Experience with AWS services and Databricks for scalable ML infrastructure and model deployment
• Knowledge of MLOps practices including containerization, model versioning, A/B testing, and real-time inference systems

AI/ML Specializations:

• Expertise in embedding techniques, multi-armed bandit algorithms, causal learning, reinforcement learning

Business & Leadership Skills:

• Proven ability to translate business requirements into scalable AI solutions with experience in ecommerce/retail environments
• Demonstrated technical leadership skills encompassing employee coaching, objective setting, and fostering professional development.
• Excellent communication skills for presenting complex AI concepts to technical and executive audiences
• Understanding of retail metrics, sales processes, and preferably beverage industry dynamics

Physical Demands

• Physical demands with activity or condition for a considerable amount of time include sitting and typing/keyboarding using a computer (e.g., keyboard, mouse, and monitor) or adding machine
• Physical demands with activity or condition may include occasional to the rare amount of time include walking, bending, reaching, standing, and stooping
• Critical nature of this job may require extended hours, overtime and weekends
• May require occasional lifting/lowering, pushing, carrying, or pulling up to 20lbs

EEO Statement

Southern Glazer's Wine and Spirits, an Affirmative Action/EEO employer, prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type and provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characFteristic protected by federal, state or local laws. This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including recruiting, hiring, placement, promotion, termination, layoff, recall, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation and training. SGWS complies with all federal, state and local laws concerning consideration of a qualified applicant's arrest and/or criminal conviction records. Southern Glazer's Wine and Spirits provides competitive compensation based on estimated performance level consistent with the past relevant experience, knowledge, skills, abilities and education of employees. Unless otherwise expressly stated, any pay ranges posted here are estimates from outside of Southern Glazer's Wine and Spirits and do not reflect Southern Glazer's pay bands or ranges.