Data Scientist, AI (P3109) /

84.51° Overview:

84.51° is a retail data science, insights and media company. We help The Kroger Co., consumer packaged goods companies, agencies, publishers and affiliates create more personalized and valuable experiences for shoppers across the path to purchase.

Powered by cutting-edge science, we utilize first-party retail data from more than 62 million U.S. households sourced through the Kroger Plus loyalty card program to fuel a more customer-centric journey using 84.51° Insights, 84.51° Loyalty Marketing and our retail media advertising solution, Kroger Precision Marketing.

Join us at 84.51°!

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We are a community of data scientists that act as the voice of the customer – they share their story with us each and every day. Through simple, comprehensive, purposeful analytics, we fearlessly bring these customer stories and journeys to life. Our 360° customer view allows us to anticipate customer needs, thus enabling our clients to connect with their customers in meaningful, relevant ways.

We expect all data scientists to be hands-on with retailer databases and advanced analytics, but in this role you will additionally focus on applying machine learning, natural language processing, and modern AI frameworks to create scalable, intelligent customer solutions. 

Responsibilities:

• Partner with senior data scientists and engineers to develop and test audience creation and recommendation solutions, including natural language–driven workflows.
• Query, clean, and transform large-scale customer datasets (loyalty, clickstream, digital interaction data) to support audience modeling and campaign targeting.
• Apply foundational statistics and machine learning techniques to measure customer behavior and campaign performance.
• Build and share insights and visualizations that translate technical findings into clear customer and business stories.
• Follow best practices for coding, quality assurance, version control, and documentation to ensure work can be scaled and reused.
• Actively participate in team discussions, retrospectives, and knowledge-sharing sessions to accelerate your learning and contribute to team success.
• Package building and code optimization experience or a strong desire to learn.
• Collaborate closely with teammates across product, engineering, and science to learn how solutions are scaled and operationalized.
• Challenging and improving 84.51° analytical capabilities/products.

Qualifications, Skills, And Experience:

• Bachelor’s degree in a quantitative field (Statistics, Data Science, Computer Science or related discipline).
• Experience querying data from relational databases using SQL.
• Experience (academic projects, internships, or research) using R, Python, or other similar statistical software to develop analytical solutions.
• Exposure to data wrangling, cleaning, and dimensionality reduction techniques.
• Foundational understanding of machine learning concepts (classification, regression, clustering).
• Experience with (academic projects, internships, or research) Big Data concepts, tools, and architecture (e.g. Spark, Databricks, Pytorch).
• Strong communication skills, with the ability to explain technical ideas to non-technical audiences.
• Curiosity, adaptability, and a strong desire to learn from senior data scientists and cross-functional partners.
• Ability to work in a highly collaborative environment.

Desired

• Grocery and/or retail experience is a plus.
• Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Large Language Models (LLMs): Exposure to prompt engineering, intent extraction, or modern LLM APIs (OpenAI, Hugging Face).
• Schema and Taxonomy Design: Interest in defining structured data schemas and normalizing free-text for downstream modeling.
• Semantic Search & Embeddings: Familiarity with vector databases and embedding models for product/theme matching and retrieval.
• Evaluation Frameworks: Awareness of metrics like precision/recall, F1, and regression testing for model quality.
• Optimization & Recommender Systems: Understanding of how predictive propensities feed into recommendation workflows.
• Data-to-Insight UX Integration: Exposure to working with product/engineering teams on APIs or UI flows that surface AI-driven recommendations.
• Feedback Loop Design: Interest in methods for capturing user interactions and feeding them back into model improvement pipelines.

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Pay Transparency and Benefits

• The stated salary range represents the entire span applicable across all geographic markets from lowest to highest.  Actual salary offers will be determined by multiple factors including but not limited to geographic location, relevant experience, knowledge, skills, other job-related qualifications, and alignment with market data and cost of labor. In addition to salary, this position is also eligible for variable compensation.
• Below is a list of some of the benefits we offer our associates:
• Health: Medical: with competitive plan designs and support for self-care, wellness and mental health. Dental: with in-network and out-of-network benefit. Vision: with in-network and out-of-network benefit.
• Wealth: 401(k) with Roth option and matching contribution. Health Savings Account with matching contribution (requires participation in qualifying medical plan). AD&D and supplemental insurance options to help ensure additional protection for you.
• Happiness: Hybrid work environment. Paid time off with flexibility to meet your life needs, including 5 weeks of vacation time, 7 health and wellness days, 3 floating holidays, as well as 6 company-paid holidays per year. Paid leave for maternity, paternity and family care instances.

Pay Range$73,000—$125,350 USD