Senior, Data Scientist

Position Summary...

What you'll do...

Join Walmart and your work could help over 275 million global customers live better every week. Yes, we are the Fortune #1 company. But you’ll quickly find we’re a company who wants you to feel comfortable bringing your whole self to work. A career at Walmart is where the world’s most complex challenges meet a kinder way of life. Our mission spreads far beyond the walls of our stores. Join us and you'll discover why we are a world leader in diversity and inclusion, sustainability, and community involvement. From day one, you’ll be empowered and equipped to do the best work of your life. careers.walmart.com

About Walmart Global Tech Org
Imagine working in an environment where one line of code can make life easier for hundreds of millions of people and put a smile on their face. That is what we do at Walmart Global Tech. We are a team of 15,000+ software engineers, data scientists and service professionals within Walmart, the world’s largest retailer, delivering innovations that improve how our customers shop and empower our 2.2 million associates. To others, innovation looks like an app, service, or some code, but Walmart has always been about people. People are why we innovate, and people power our innovations. Being human led is our true disruption.

About Emerging Tech Team
The Emerging Tech team is passionate about solving customer and associate problems with the newest technologies. The team is responsible for creating breakthrough capabilities, delivering frictionless experiences, and making these technologies easily available to thousands of Walmart developers and 2.2 million associates. The applications and services built on these capabilities are used by hundreds of millions of customers daily. We are building new platforms to bring physical and digital world together.

What you will be part of
At Walmart’s Emerging Tech Extended Reality team, we own some of the most challenging, fascinating, and impactful work in the fields of Computer vision, Machine learning and Deep Learning for next generation Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality experiences.
We are looking for Applied Scientists/researchers/Computer vision engineers with algorithms, programming and/or systems background.

Key Responsibilities

• Design Multi-Modal Evaluation Frameworks: Develop and validate novel evaluation metrics for non-deterministic outputs, specifically video, image, for 3D assets, and audio.

• Build "AI-as-a-Judge" Systems: Fine-tune Vision-Language Models (VLMs) and Reward Models to serve as automated evaluators, creating scalable proxies for human judgment.

• Lead Experimentation & Causal Inference: Design and analyze A/B tests to measure the downstream business impact of GenAI content; apply causal inference techniques to understand how specific asset attributes drive user engagement.

• Orchestrate Human-in-the-Loop (RLHF) Strategy: Define protocols for human evaluation, managing the relationship with annotation partners to create high-quality "Golden Sets" for benchmarking and Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback (RLHF).

• Strategic Cross-Functional Partnership: Collaborate with ML Engineers and Product Managers to establish "Go/No-Go" model launch criteria based on latency, safety, and perceptual quality standards.

• Research & Innovation: Stay current with state-of-the-art research in perceptual quality (e.g., FID, CLIP scores, VQA) and implement advanced techniques to detect hallucinations, artifacts, or bias in generated content.

Minimum qualifications:

• Master's degree in Computer Science with a specialization in Computer Vision, Machine Learning, or equivalent practical experience.

• 3+ years of experience with machine learning algorithms and tools.

• Strong foundation in statistical analysis, experimental design (A/B testing), and causal inference.

• Hands-on experience with Generative AI evaluation (e.g., using LLMs/VLMs for evaluation, computing FID/IS/CLIP scores, or designing perceptual studies).

• Proficiency in Python and deep learning frameworks (PyTorch, TensorFlow) for analyzing model outputs and building evaluation pipelines.

• Experience processing unstructured data (image, video, 3D meshes) for analytical purposes.

 

Preferred qualifications:

• PhD in Machine Learning, Computer Science, or a related technical field.

• Experience designing Reward Models for RLHF pipelines.

• Deep understanding of 3D geometry processing (meshes, point clouds) and how to mathematically quantify "3D quality" (e.g., mesh manifoldness, texture resolution).

• Experience with Crowdsourcing platforms and designing instructions for subjective human evaluation.

• Publication record or practical experience in Computational Photography, Computer Vision Quality Assessment, or Psychophysics.

• Experience with Big Data tools (Spark, SQL, BigQuery) for analyzing large-scale experiment results.

Walmart’s culture is a competitive advantage, and it’s fostered by being together. Working together in person allows us to collaborate, align quickly and innovate with greater speed.  We use our campuses to create purposeful connection rooted in deepening understanding and investing in the development of our associates.  
Our hubs: Walmart is a global company with offices across the United States and around the world. Our global headquarters is in Bentonville, Arkansas, with primary hubs in the San Francisco Bay area and New York/New Jersey. 

Benefits:
Benefits: Beyond our great compensation package, you can receive incentive awards for your performance. Other great perks include 401(k) match, stock purchase plan, paid maternity and parental leave, PTO, multiple health plans, and much more.

Equal Opportunity Employer:
Walmart, Inc. is an Equal Opportunity Employer – By Choice. We believe we are best equipped to help our associates, customers and the communities we serve live better when we really know them. That means understanding, respecting and valuing unique styles, experiences, identities, ideas and opinions – while being inclusive of all people.

The above information has been designed to indicate the general nature and level of work performed in the role. It is not designed to contain or be interpreted as a comprehensive inventory of all responsibilities and qualifications required of employees assigned to this job. The full Job Description can be made available as part of the hiring process.

At Walmart, we offer competitive pay as well as performance-based bonus awards and other great benefits for a happier mind, body, and wallet. Health benefits include medical, vision and dental coverage. Financial benefits include 401(k), stock purchase and company-paid life insurance. Paid time off benefits include PTO (including sick leave), parental leave, family care leave, bereavement, jury duty, and voting. Other benefits include short-term and long-term disability, company discounts, Military Leave Pay, adoption and surrogacy expense reimbursement, and more.

You will also receive PTO and/or PPTO that can be used for vacation, sick leave, holidays, or other purposes. The amount you receive depends on your job classification and length of employment. It will meet or exceed the requirements of paid sick leave laws, where applicable.

For information about PTO, see https://one.walmart.com/notices.

Live Better U is a Walmart-paid education benefit program for full-time and part-time associates in Walmart and Sam's Club facilities. Programs range from high school completion to bachelor's degrees, including English Language Learning and short-form certificates. Tuition, books, and fees are completely paid for by Walmart.

Eligibility requirements apply to some benefits and may depend on your job classification and length of employment. Benefits are subject to change and may be subject to a specific plan or program terms.

For information about benefits and eligibility, see One.Walmart.


The annual salary range for this position is $117,000.00 - $234,000.00

Additional compensation includes annual or quarterly performance bonuses.

Additional compensation for certain positions may also include :

- Stock

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Minimum Qualifications...

Outlined below are the required minimum qualifications for this position. If none are listed, there are no minimum qualifications.

Option 1- Bachelor’s degree in Statistics, Economics, Analytics, Mathematics, Computer Science, Information Technology, or related field and 3 years' experience in an analytics related field. Option 2- Master’s degree in Statistics, Economics, Analytics, Mathematics, Computer Science, Information Technology, or related field and 1 years' experience in an analytics related field. Option 3 - 5 years' experience in an analytics or related field.

Preferred Qualifications...

Outlined below are the optional preferred qualifications for this position. If none are listed, there are no preferred qualifications.

Data science, machine learning, optimization models, Master’s degree in Machine Learning, Computer Science, Information Technology, Operations Research, Statistics, Applied Mathematics, Econometrics, Successful completion of one or more assessments in Python, Spark, Scala, or R, Using open source frameworks (for example, scikit learn, tensorflow, torch), We value candidates with a background in creating inclusive digital experiences, demonstrating knowledge in implementing Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 AA standards, assistive technologies, and integrating digital accessibility seamlessly. The ideal candidate would have knowledge of accessibility best practices and join us as we continue to create accessible products and services following Walmart’s accessibility standards and guidelines for supporting an inclusive culture.

Primary Location...

1345 Crossman Ave, Sunnyvale, CA 94089-1114, United States of America

Walmart and its subsidiaries are committed to maintaining a drug-free workplace and has a no tolerance policy regarding the use of illegal drugs and alcohol on the job. This policy applies to all employees and aims to create a safe and productive work environment.