Director of AI & Data Science || Full Time || $300k Salary

Job Description

Sr. Director of AI & Data Science

• Location: Wayzata, MN (Onsite - 5 days/week)
• Compensation: $190K – $300K base + bonus + benefits
• Seniority: Director level (leading a team of 16 Data Scientists)
• Travel: Occasional

Job Purpose and Impact
The Sr. Director of AI & Data Science is a visionary leader responsible for uncovering and enabling differentiated, high-impact applications of artificial intelligence across the business. This role partners closely with business leaders to identify innovative opportunities where AI can be a strategic differentiator, fueling competitive advantage and driving measurable outcomes. Beyond leading the development and deployment of AI solutions, this role plays a critical part in shaping how AI can transform decision-making, operations, and customer experiences. The Sr. Director also champions responsible AI practices, ensuring governance, risk mitigation, and ethical use of AI are embedded in every initiative. With a focus on business value, quality, and foresight, this role drives cross-functional collaboration to turn AI potential into sustainable impact.

Key Accountabilities

• Partners with business leaders to identify and accelerate AI opportunities through re-imagining how work is performed, embracing new and modern optimization techniques and changing the pace by which business value is realized.
• Translates complex AI capabilities into compelling business narratives, presenting to and influencing non-technical audiences and senior stakeholders to drive informed strategic decisions and foster confidence in AI-driven innovation.
• Provides strategic direction of product delivery to ensure scope, timeline and budget are prioritized and in compliance with related regulations and policies.
• Leads all aspects of ongoing efforts to guide and improve artificial intelligence and data science design & development practices, champions a culture of innovation and continuous improvement within the organization and partners with key team members to drive artificial intelligence literacy and adoption.
• Develops and sponsors a community of practice of global data scientists to drive reuse, awareness and alignment to further the company's adoption and value through analytics solutions.
• Presents and sells artificial intelligence solutions to non-technical audiences to influence strategic related decisions.
• Accountable for delivering measurable business outcomes from artificial intelligence investments, with responsibility for handling a significant budget and achieving defined value impact targets.
• Builds strategic partnerships and alliances with key business and industry entities to achieve organizational objectives and improve the value of investments.
• Manages team members to achieve organization goals, provides technical coaching & guidance, drives accountability for high performance and develops and sustains an environment for data scientists to thrive in an inclusive culture.
• Other duties as assigned
• Bachelor’s degree in data science, computer science, math, engineering or related field or equivalent experience
• Minimum of eight years of related work experience
• Experience in a minimum of two machine learning algorithms approaches: unsupervised, supervised and reinforcement learning
• Confirmed ability to present to non-technical audiences
• Master’s degree or PhD in data science, computer science, math, engineering or related field
• Five years of experience leading teams
• Experience driving analytics adoption and mobilizing business transformation through AI adoption

Qualifications – Minimum

Qualifications – Preferred

• Broad expertise of business processes and functions
• Proficient in communicating to senior executives on opportunity and value, relating to the audience at hand

• Experience In Agriculture

• Experience working with continuous integration and delivery (CI/CD) pipelines
• Experience working with distributed computing frameworks
• Experience working with AWS
• Experience in software development environment and code management or versioning
• Expected salary: $190,000 – $300,000 (depending on location, certifications, education, and experience)
• Eligible for discretionary incentive award (based on company and personal performance)

Compensation Data

• Full Benefits Package

• Minnesota Sick and Safe Leave accruals (1 hour for every 30 worked, up to 48 hours per calendar year unless otherwise provided by law)

Other Details

• Full-Time

• Equal Opportunity Employer, including Disability/Vet
• Security Clearance Required: No
• Visa Candidate Considered: No
• Relocation Assistance: Possible for ideal candidate
• Commission: No
• Bonus Eligible: Yes
• Overtime Eligible: No
• Interview Travel Reimbursed: No

Candidate Details

• 7–10 Years Experience

• Seniority Level: Director
• Management Experience Required: Yes
• Minimum Education: Bachelor’s Degree
• Willingness to Travel: Occasionally
• Data Science, AI, Analytics + industry experience (Commercial, Sales, Agriculture)
• Strategic champion to drive AI at scale – success measured by compounding value
• Collaborates with senior leaders to modernize processes and improve efficiency
• Thought leader in data science with strong emotional intelligence (EQ)

Ideal Candidate

• Leads a global team of 16 data scientists, transitioning from regional to global scope
• Role based in Wayzata, MN (relocation available)

Additional Information

All your information will be kept confidential according to EEO guidelines.