Data & ML Engineer

Job Summary

Join our innovative team in Foothill Ranch, CA, where we're transforming retail loss prevention and customer safety through advanced technologies like AI, computer vision, and facial recognition. As a global leader with over 25 years of excellence and a diverse team of 500 employees across North America, Europe, Australia, and Asia, we are committed to innovation, integrity, and impact. Be part of a mission-focused team making a real difference in the future of retail by providing innovative solutions that redefine industry standards.

What We Offer

• Attractive Total Compensation Package, including an annual bonus
• Comprehensive healthcare benefits: medical, dental, vision, Life/ADD/LTD insurance, FSA/HSA options
• 401(k) Plan with Employer Match
• Generous Paid Time Off (PTO) policy
• 11 paid company holidays
• Various Employee Engagement Events
• Exciting Growth Opportunities
• Positive Company Culture

Responsibilities

Data Platform, Pipelines, & Quality (Primary Focus)

• Design, build, and operate scalable ELT/ETL pipelines for data ingestion from IoT/smart-cart telemetry, video events, operational systems, and external partners into our cloud data lake/warehouse.
• Build and maintain robust data infrastructure, including SQL and NoSQL databases, data warehouses, and data integration solutions.
• Establish canonical data models and definitions to ensure data trust and reuse across products, BI, and analytics.
• Implement data quality assurance through validation rules, automated tests, anomaly detection, and monitoring/alerting.
• Drive data consistency improvements across systems and document data contract expectations with producing teams.
• Troubleshoot pipeline and data issues, perform root-cause analysis, and implement durable fixes.
• Partner with BI Analysts and Product teams to create curated datasets and self-serve analytics foundations.

Applied ML Ownership - Smart Exit Cart-Empty Classifier (Secondary Focus)

• Own the production lifecycle for the cart classification capability, including data collection/labeling workflows and evaluation.
• Implement and optimize machine learning pipelines from feature engineering to deployment and monitoring.
• Build and maintain evaluation harnesses and ongoing monitoring for accuracy and data drift.
• Collaborate with the FaceFirst ML team for model updates and feature changes.
• Ensure the classifier integrates cleanly into the product workflow with robust telemetry, logging, and operational runbooks.

Qualifications

• 5 years of experience in building and operating production ELT/ETL pipelines and data warehouses.
• Fluency in SQL and Python (or similar) for data transformation, validation, and automation.
• Experience with cloud data platforms (Azure and/or GCP), including object storage, security/access controls, and cost-aware design.
• Hands-on experience with orchestration and transformation tooling (e.g., Airflow/Prefect) and batch processing frameworks (e.g., Spark/Databricks).
• Practical experience in implementing data quality practices and improving data consistency across systems.
• Collaboration with operational teams to identify and remediate in-field system issues.
• Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Information Systems, Mathematics, Statistics, or a related technical field.