JOB OVERVIEW: Do you see patterns or opportunities that others don't see? Do you enjoy asking questions and analyzing data to deepen your knowledge? Do you like to challenge historical assumptions and recommend new ways to drive action based on data-driven insights? Do you like to find the best way to tackle a problem and share the approach with others?
To make the food people love, we need to make sure we feed our decision makers the right data and solutions at the right time, every time. As a Lead Data Scientist at General Mills, you will apply your strong expertise in machine learning, data mining, and information retrieval to design, prototype, and build next next-generation advanced analytics engine and services. You will collaborate with product owners, business partners, and other Data Scientists to define technical problem statements and hypotheses to test. In addition, you will develop efficient and accurate analytical models that improve business decisions.
RESPONSIBILITIES: - Lead, design, and execute novel ways to help business partners achieve objectives through analysis and modeling.
- Work closely with data science leadership, engineering, and business partners to develop machine learning models using best-in-class tools and technology.
- Provide technical leadership through strong partnerships and by offering alternative solutions
- Lead the design & implementation of LLM, NLP and computer vision solutions for unstructured text and images, covering problem framing, data curation, fine-tuning/adapters, and evaluation across classification, entity extraction & summarization.
- Partner closely with AI Leadership, ML Engineering, and business stakeholders to architect high-quality Agentic AI and RAG workflows, optimizing ingestion, chunking, embeddings and vector indexing with established frameworks and stores to maximize retrieval performance.
- Create production-ready, scalable models that provide real-time insights that align with General Mills technology standards.
- Provide technical leadership for analytical solution design by hypothesis-driven experimentation, defining robust evaluation strategies and error taxonomies with human-in-the-loop reviews, with clear documentation for transparency and reusability.
- Serve as a part of the data science leadership team, contributing to technical strategy, best practices, and team development.
- Coach junior data scientists on key technical and domain topics through solution reviews and mentoring.
- Champion Responsible AI by ensuring privacy, security, and governance compliance; reducing model errors and bias; and partnering across teams to integrate solutions into daily work.
- Act as a thought leader in data science techniques and represent the Digital and Technology organization.
MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS: - Bachelor's degree required, with 6+ years of commensurate experience in Data Science, with 1+ years of experience working on agentic AI experiences
- Experience in statistical analysis, machine learning, clustering, and data mining techniques to identify trends and insights
- Experience with Python, comfortable working with large and dynamic Data Frames & writing complex SQL queries.
- Highly adaptable, curious, and willing to work independently on complex and challenging problems.
- Understanding of data warehousing and databases is critical
- Experience with machine learning and data visualization tools
- Number sense, ability to identify questionable data, dig in and address it.
- Exemplary organizational skills with attention to detail and accuracy.
- Bias for action with ability to deliver outstanding results through task prioritization and time management.
- Expertise in leading the development of large-scale AI and machine learning based models.
- Strong communication and collaboration skills to understand customer needs and deliver solutions in alignment with business needs.
PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS: - Master's Degree or PhD in Data Science, Computer Science, Engineering, Math, or Statistics preferred.
- 8+ years' Experience working in data science / related quantitative field.
- 3+ years' Experience building ML solutions using unstructured data techniques like Computer Vision (CV) and/or Natural Language Programming (NLP)
- Experience with Google Cloud Platform or similar technology.
- Applied experience in supply chain, logistics, pricing, revenue management, or other commercial areas is a plus.
ADDITIONAL CONSIDERATIONS: - The preferred location for this role is Minneapolis, MN; however, remote work-at-home applications within the United States will be considered.
- Relocation or international remote working arrangements (outside of the US) will not be considered.
Salary Range The salary range for this position is $126700.00 - $211200.00 / Annually. At General Mills we strive for each employee's pay at any point in their career to reflect their experiences performance and skills for their current role. The salary range for this role represents the numerous factors considered in the hiring decisions including, but not limited to, educations, skills, work experience, certifications, etc. As such, pay for the successful candidate(s) could fall anywhere within the stated range. Beyond base salary, General Mills offers a competitive Total Rewards package focusing on your overall well-being. We are proud to offer a foundation of health benefits, retirement and financial wellbeing, time off programs, wellbeing support and perks. Benefits may vary by role, country, region, union status, and other employment status factors. You may also be eligible to participate in an annual incentive program. An incentive award, if any, depends on various factors, including, individual and organizational performance.
Reasonable Accommodation RequestIf you need to request an accommodation during the application or hiring process, please fill out our online accommodations request form by following this link:
Accommodations Request. 
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