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

Qualifications – Minimum

• 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

Qualifications – Preferred

• 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

• Broad expertise of business processes and functions

• Proficient in communicating to senior executives on opportunity and value, relating to the audience at hand

• 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

• Experience in agriculture

Compensation Data

• Expected salary: $190,000 – $300,000 (depending on location, certifications, education, and experience)

• Eligible for discretionary incentive award (based on company and personal performance)

• 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

• 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

• Full-time

Candidate Details

• 7–10 years experience

• Seniority Level: Director

• Management Experience Required: Yes

• Minimum Education: Bachelor’s Degree

• Willingness to Travel: Occasionally

Ideal Candidate

• 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)

• 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.