Principal Data Scientist

**Why choose us? **

**Are you ready to take the next step in your career? Join us for an exciting opportunity at Albertsons Companies, where innovation and customer service go hand\-in\-hand! **

At Albertsons Companies, we are looking for someone who’s not just seeking a job, but someone who wants to make an impact. In this role, you’ll have the opportunity to lead, innovate, and contribute 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.

**Bring your flavor**

Building the future of food and well\-being starts with you. Join our team and bring your best self to the table.

The position will be based in Pleasanton, CA.

**Main 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 product ionization 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.

**Required Qualifications**

**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 plus years of experience developing and deploying machine learning and deep learning solutions in production environments.
• 8 plus 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
• We also provide a variety of benefits including:
• 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). For eligibility requirements please visit myACI Benefits
• Leaders invested in your training, career growth and development
• An inclusive work environment with talented colleagues who reflect the communities we serve

**Our Values – Click below to view video:**

ACI Values

*A copy of the full job description can be made available to you. *