Senior Data Scientist

We are seeking a full-time Senior Data Scientist at Garmin’s U.S. headquarters in the Greater Kansas City area.  In this role, you will be responsible for providing technical leadership and strategic project planning for data science initiatives related to new products, applications, or systems within the company. This role involves leveraging advanced data science techniques to drive innovation and deliver actionable insights that support business objectives. The Senior Data Scientist will collaborate with cross-functional teams, mentor junior data scientists and/or software engineers, and ensure the successful implementation and integration of data-driven solutions.

Essential Functions

• Lead the design, development, and deployment of advanced AI/ML models and algorithms to solve complex business problems
• Develop and integrate the AI agents/solutions seamlessly with existing Contract Management Systems (CMS) and document repositories.
• Lead the design and implementation of end-to-end Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) pipelines to ground LLMs with up-to-date and authoritative external data.
• Manage the entire data flow for RAG, including document chunking, metadata management, and generating high-quality vector embeddings using state-of-the-art embedding models.
• Evaluate, select, and manage vector databases (e.g., Pinecone, Weaviate, Qdrant) and indexing techniques (e.g., HNSW) to ensure fast and accurate semantic search and retrieval.
• Continuously iterate on the RAG components, including retrieval algorithms and prompt engineering strategies, to maximize the contextual relevance and quality of generated responses.
• Provide technical leadership and mentorship to junior data scientists, fostering a culture of continuous learning and improvement
• Drive the strategic planning and execution of data science projects, ensuring alignment with business goals and timelines
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams, including engineering, legal, product management and business stakeholders, to define project requirements and deliver data-driven solutions
• Develop and implement scalable data pipelines and workflows to support the end-to-end data science lifecycle
• Evaluate and integrate new data science techniques, tools, and technologies to enhance the company’s data capabilities
• Communicate complex analytical concepts and results to non-technical stakeholders through clear and compelling data visualizations and presentations
• Ensure the robustness, scalability, and performance of deployed models, monitoring their impact and iterating as necessary
• Champion best practices in data science, including data governance, model validation, and ethical AI considerations
• Identify and prioritize opportunities for leveraging data to drive business growth and operational efficiency
• Lead the development of custom machine learning models and algorithms tailored to specific business needs
• Stay current with the latest advancements in data science, machine learning, and AI including LLMs, RAG frameworks (e.g., LangChain, LlamaIndex), and vector database technologies, and apply this knowledge to drive innovation within the company
• Own team-level success by monitoring, modifying and creating team processes to help ensure consistency, continuity, efficiency and impact in analysis and ML pipelines
• Mentor and guide junior team members, sharing best practices and providing constructive feedback
• Pioneer peer reviews and foster a culture of continuous improvement and learning
• Develop and enforce data governance policies and procedures to ensure data integrity and security
• Monitor compliance with data privacy laws and regulations and implement measures to protect sensitive information

Basic Qualifications

• Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Software Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Math or Physics or a technical field (such as CIS or IT) relevant to the essential functions of this job description AND a minimum of 5 years of relevant experience OR an equivalent combination of education and relevant experience
• Excellent academics (cumulative GPA greater than or equal to 3.0 as a general rule)
• Extensive experience using systems such as SQL, Python, or R
• Strong expertise in machine learning frameworks (e.g., Scikit-Learn, TensorFlow, PyTorch)
• Proven hands-on experience in fine-tuning Large Language Models (LLMs) and deep understanding of their architectures (e.g., Transformers).
• Strong experience designing and deploying RAG systems and building high-performance semantic search and retrieval pipelines.
• Practical experience with vector embeddings and working with vector databases for production-grade applications.
• Demonstrated expert knowledge in data analysis methods and tools
• Demonstrated strong and effective verbal, written, and interpersonal communication skills
• Must be team-oriented, possess a positive attitude, and work well with others
• Driven problem solver with proven success in solving difficult problems
• Consistently demonstrates quality and effectiveness in work documentation and organization
  
  

Desired Qualifications

• Advanced experience with structured database management systems and distributed computing
  Expertise in time series analysis, NLP, deep learning, or reinforcement learning
• Leadership in MLOps, model deployment, and CI/CD for data science workflows
• Advanced understanding of A/B testing and causal inference
• Experience working with unstructured data (text, images, audio, etc.)
• Proficiency with cloud platforms (e.g. AWS, Azure, GCP) for data science workflows
• Experience with real-time data processing technologies (e.g. Apache, Kafka)

Garmin International is an equal opportunity employer. Qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, religion, color, national origin, citizenship, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, veteran's status, age or disability.

This position is eligible for Garmin's benefit program. Details can be found here: Garmin Employment Benefits