Senior Distinguished I, Data Scientist

Senior Distinguished I, Data Scientist

What you'll do at

Position Summary...

What you'll do...

About the Team


Walmart Global Tech’s Next Gen Commerce team is building the future of retail through intelligent, immersive, and conversational experiences. We’re creating AI-driven systems that redefine how customers discover, explore, and shop—whether through personalized media, generative content, or intelligent shopping agents. Our work spans multimodal modeling, LLM-based dialogue systems, 3D/AR content generation, and more—all at the scale of the world’s largest retailer.

About the Role


As a Senior Distinguished Data Scientist, you will drive scientific strategy and hands-on development across some of Walmart’s most strategic AI initiatives. Whether optimizing real-time conversational agents or building generative media systems, you’ll help deliver transformative, customer-facing capabilities. This is a high-impact, technical leadership role focused on innovation, production-quality execution, and cross-functional alignment.

What You’ll Do

  • Lead technical design and execution of AI systems that power immersive commerce and intelligent shopping journeys

  • Build and optimize generative models for rich media (e.g., image, video, 3D) and multimodal understanding (e.g., vision-language, spatial awareness)

  • Develop LLM-driven agents capable of multi-turn, grounded, and context-aware interactions

  • Define architecture, evaluation frameworks, and experimentation pipelines across complex model stacks

  • Collaborate across Engineering, Product, and Design to translate cutting-edge research into scalable, real-world applications

  • Stay at the forefront of developments in LLMs, diffusion models, 3D representations, agent orchestration, and memory systems

  • Ensure development excellence through code reviews, prototyping, model validation, and continuous optimization

What You’ll Bring

  • 10+ years in Data Science, Machine Learning, or Applied AI

  • Deep expertise in one or more of the following: generative AI, LLMs, computer vision, conversational AI, multimodal modeling, or 3D/AR systems

  • Proven track record of deploying models into production environments at scale

  • Strong understanding of model architecture, training strategy, and system performance tradeoffs

  • Hands-on experience with evaluation frameworks, A/B testing, and model monitoring

  • Strong communication skills and a history of influencing cross-functional stakeholders

  • Ph.D. or Master’s in Computer Science, Machine Learning, NLP, or related field preferred

Why This Role is Critical


This role sits at the intersection of retail, AI, and emerging user experiences. As the industry rapidly evolves toward generative and agentic technologies, Walmart is investing heavily to lead this transformation. We need senior AI technologists with deep technical rigor and the vision to build what’s next—at global scale.

Join Us


This is your opportunity to shape the future of commerce through cutting-edge AI. At Walmart, you’ll turn deep science into real-world impact—reaching hundreds of millions of people.

At Walmart, we offer competitive pay as well as performance-based bonus awards and other great benefits for a happier mind, body, and wallet. 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.

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You will also receive PTO and/or PPTO that can be used for vacation, sick leave, holidays, or other purposes. The amount you receive depends on your job classification and length of employment. It will meet or exceed the requirements of paid sick leave laws, where applicable.

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For information about PTO, see https://one.walmart.com/notices.

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Live Better U is a Walmart-paid education benefit program for full-time and part-time associates in Walmart and Sam's Club facilities. Programs range from high school completion to bachelor's degrees, including English Language Learning and short-form certificates. Tuition, books, and fees are completely paid for by Walmart.

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Eligibility requirements apply to some benefits and may depend on your job classification and length of employment. Benefits are subject to change and may be subject to a specific plan or program terms.

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For information about benefits and eligibility, see One.Walmart.

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The annual salary range for this position is $208,000.00-$416,000.00

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Additional compensation includes annual or quarterly performance bonuses.

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Additional compensation for certain positions may also include:

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- Stock

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Minimum Qualifications...

Outlined below are the required minimum qualifications for this position. If none are listed, there are no minimum qualifications.

Option 1: Bachelor’s degree in Statistics, Economics, Analytics, Mathematics, Computer Science, Information Technology or related field and 7
years' experience in an analytics related field. Option 2: Master’s degree in Statistics, Economics, Analytics, Mathematics, Computer Science,
Information Technology or related field and 5 years' experience in an analytics related field. Option 3: 9 years' experience in an analytics or related
field.

Preferred Qualifications...

Outlined below are the optional preferred qualifications for this position. If none are listed, there are no preferred qualifications.

Data science, machine learning, optimization models, PhD in Machine Learning, Computer Science, Information Technology, Operations Research, Statistics, Applied Mathematics, Econometrics, Publications or active peer reviewer in related journals or conference, Successful completion of one or more assessments in Python, Spark, Scala, or R, Using open source frameworks (for example, scikit learn, tensorflow, torch), We value candidates with a background in creating inclusive digital experiences, demonstrating knowledge in implementing Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 AA standards, assistive technologies, and integrating digital accessibility seamlessly. The ideal candidate would have knowledge of accessibility best practices and join us as we continue to create accessible products and services following Walmart’s accessibility standards and guidelines for supporting an inclusive culture.

Primary Location...

840 W California Ave, Sunnyvale, CA 94086-4828, United States of America

About Walmart

At Walmart, we help people save money so they can live better. This mission serves as the foundation for every decision we make, from responsible sourcing to sustainability—and everything in between. As a Walmart associate, you will play an integral role in shaping the future of retail, tech, merchandising, finance and hundreds of other industries—all while affecting the lives of millions of customers all over the world. Here, your work makes an impact every day. What are you waiting for?

Walmart Inc. is an Equal Opportunity Employer- By Choice. We believe we are best equipped to help our associates, customers, and the communities we serve live better when we really know them. That means understanding, respecting, and valuing unique styles, experiences, identities, abilities, ideas and opinions- while welcoming all people.
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"The people you work with are ready to help without hesitation to make sure you succeed, it’s just part of the culture."
— Shelby, Project Analyst

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All the benefits you need for you and your family

  • Multiple health plan options, including vision & dental plans for you & dependents
  • Financial benefits including 401(k), stock purchase plans, life insurance and more
  • Associate discounts in-store and online
  • Education assistance for Associate and dependents
  • Parental Leave
  • Pay during military service
  • Paid Time off - to include vacation, sick, parental
  • Short-term and long-term disability for when you can't work because of injury, illness, or childbirth

Eligibility requirements apply to some benefits and may depend on your job classification and length of employment. Benefits are subject to change and may be subject to specific plan or program terms. For information about benefits and eligibility, see One.Walmart.com/Benefits.

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