Lead Data Scientist

Foods people love. Brands people trust. And a career that nourishes your future like no other.

If you're driven by the passion to do something meaningful that changes lives, Nestlé is the place for you. Nestlé USA is one of seven operating companies that make up Nestlé’s presence in the United States. We're in 97% of American homes, and as the leading food and beverage company, our goals are to continue to deliver quality food and beverage products, strengthen our local communities, and reduce our environmental and climate impact.

We’re determined to challenge the status quo and be better tomorrow than we are today. As individuals and teams, we embrace our entrepreneurial culture and have created a workplace where collaboration is essential, courage is rewarded, speed is expected, and agility is the norm to delight our consumers every single day. Here, you will find limitless opportunities to learn and advance your career and feel empowered to succeed in the workplace and beyond. Because our focus is not only on nourishing our customers, but also about enriching you.

Position Summary

As a “Business Scientist” (Business Acumen + Data Scientist), the Enterprise Analytics (EA) Lead Data Scientist will serve as the advanced analytics expert across EA initiatives currently in flight or being planned at NUSA, building, enhancing and applying sophisticated, interconnected and predictive algorithms to drive profitable growth across the enterprise. The overall objective is to enable diagnostic evaluation, predictive planning, and prescriptive decision making in everyday problem solving across the Ensure Supply Functions (Procurement, Manufacturing, and Logistics), with a primary focus in Manufacturing.

1. Lead model development, evaluation, and deployment to support operational decision making across Ensure Supply, focusing mostly in Manufacturing.
2. Introduce Machine Learning methodologies across a wide breadth of business use cases.
3. Acquire deep understanding of business problems and translate them into appropriate mathematical depictions.
4. Act as an internal consultant by integrating with departmental customers to identify opportunities, scope and define the business problems, performing data analysis, and generate self-service solutions to address needs.
5. Interpret the results, draw conclusions, and present findings / recommendations to appropriate groups to help identify actionable steps to be taken by cross-functional and leadership teams.
6. Mentor more junior staff, guide predictive model development across team, define how customers use the models, and train users on integration.

Primary Responsibilities – What You’ll Do

1. Test and implement the advanced analytics methods to derive insights that drive business growth.
2. Drive the execution of AI solutions to address business needs.
3. Drive EA priorities through rapid piloting and scaling of next gen technologies.
4. Incorporate the latest data science thinking into NUSA’s solutions and models.
5. Collect, cleanse, and understand complex data sources to enable proper analytical modeling.
6. Research, design, develop, test, and implement data science methodologies across a wide range of business applications.
7. Define and develop programming for self-service decision support solutions that leverage predictive, prescriptive, and scenario optimization tactics.
8. Manage Special Projects, Pilots, Proof of Concepts, and Ad-hoc project work leading the charge from idea to delivered data science capability.
9. Participate in the evaluation, intake, design, and integration strategy between multiple commercial functions (sales, marketing, etc.) and data sources for varying Nestlé businesses.
10. Conduct proper stakeholder management to ensure all parties are aligned and updated throughout project life cycle.
11. Design and build advanced visualization tools that will simplify the outputs of the models, with the goal of being integrated into a self-service operational model across the business stakeholders.
12. Develop professional presentations and project status reporting appropriate for their intended audience.
13. Coach analysts and junior data scientists in addressing modeling issues identified by the business stakeholders. Provide analytics knowledge and support to the commercial business network.
14. Develop reusable assets that can be leveraged across the data science team.

A few potential analytics areas you will be involved in are listed below:

1. Recommendation Engines (e.g. Production Process optimization, Inventory Management, Equipment Maintenance)
2. Predictive Scenario Planning (e.g. Future business performance, drivers and scenarios)
3. Loss of Sterility of liquid processing governed by FDA Pasteurized Milk Ordinance.
4. Factory Loss Analysis (material loss, unplanned stops, maintenance, etc.).
5. Factory Digital Twins.

Requirements and Minimum Education Level

1. Undergraduate Degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics, Statistics, Business or a similar field. Master’s degree preferred but additional, relevant work experience would be considered in lieu of a Master’s Degree.
2. 5+ years of experience using various programming languages (R, Python etc.) to develop and apply machine learning methods and algorithms to address business priorities, with focus on consumer products preferred.

Necessary Skills & Qualifications

1. Business acumen (strong understanding of how business operates, and how to harness data and analytics to meet business needs).
2. Experience in manufacturing operations, processes, data and systems.
3. Ability to develop and deploy advanced analytical models and algorithms that drive profitable growth at NUSA.
4. Strong working knowledge of a variety of machine learning techniques (Regression, Clustering, Decision Tree, Neural Networks, Bayesian etc.).
5. Experience developing analytics solutions in python, with hands on experience leveraging python’s data manipulation, analysis, and visualization libraries.
6. Proficiency in scripting in python, including the ability to write efficient code to automate tasks, manipulate data, and perform various operations using python libraries and frameworks.
7. Strong understanding of object-oriented programming (OOP) in python and how to effectively implement classes, objects, and inheritance hierarchies to create modular and reusable code.
8. Experience visualizing/presenting data for partners using PowerBI, Tableau, or Streamlit.
9. Familiarity of MLOps best practices for deploying, monitoring, and maintaining solutions in production.
10. Passion for solving complex data problems and generating cross-functional solutions in a fast-paced environment.
11. Proven examples of developing, selling, and sharing modeling concepts and software development best practices across team members to drive adoption.
12. Experience in a mentorship type role, focused on driving contribution beyond own models and projects.
13. Good facilitation and presentation skills, including training delivery.
14. Excellent oral and written communication skills, organizational and time-management abilities.
15. High initiative, self-starter, and able to work with limited supervision.

Requisition ID: 327738

It is our business imperative to remain a very inclusive workplace.

The Nestlé Companies are an equal employment opportunity and affirmative action employer seeking diversity in qualified applicants for employment. All applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, ethnicity, color, gender, gender identity, age, religion, national origin, ancestry, disability, perceived disability, medical condition, genetic information, veteran status, sexual orientation, or any other protected status, as defined by applicable law.