Principal, Head of AI

Role:
Principal, Head of AI

Team:
Data & Analytics

Scope:
Individual contributor

Reports To:
Senior Director, Data & Analytics

Years of Experience:
10+

Location:
Ventura, CA

Patagonia is on a journey to utilize Data & Analytics to power its purpose – helping save the home planet. We're building a technology organization that blends the best of industry & technical skills with the passion for solving unsolved problems, all for the greater good. And we're having fun doing it

As The Principal, Head Of AI On The Data & Analytics Team, You Will Be Empowered To Solve Meaningful Problems Leveraging AI For a Brand With a Bold Mission – To Save Our Home Planet. You Will Collaborate With Other Members Of Technology Including Engineering, Architecture, Operations, Data & Analytics Along With Other Key Functional & Senior Leaders Across The Company To Accomplish These 4 Primary Priorities

• To create and drive a multi-year AI strategy that builds capabilities & skillsets, deliver valuable outcomes through projects & programs, and advances our overall company strategies through AI
• To build a matrixed AI organization that will use machine learning, GenAI and advanced qualitative & statistical methods to power key decisions
• Enhance our data-powered culture, advancing awareness & support for AI capabilities to power our most important opportunities
• To drive the technical platform requirements & features needed to support these efforts

What You'll Do
Leadership and Team Development:

• Develop and nurture a high-performing AI team
• Guide & develop analysts across the company on advanced analytical opportunities and methods
• Set hiring standards, mentor team members, and foster a collaborative culture
• Build partnerships with consulting partners to help augment your internal team

Vision And Strategy

• Create and oversee the adoption of the AI vision across departments.
• Collaborate with executives and stakeholders to align initiatives with business goals.

Products & Insights

• Drive insights across many domains including purpose, circularity, finance, strategy, customer, product, planning, merchandising, supply chain, and beyond
• Deliver products & insights that directly power key decisions using statistical models, data mining, and machine learning algorithms

Strategic Guidance

• Provide overall direction for advanced analytics efforts, ensuring alignment with organizational objectives
• Identify opportunities for innovation and growth through data-driven insights.

Build

• Drive requirements & needs for the AI Platform, balancing value & cost within our entire data & analytics ecosystem
• Collaborate on the development & management of said platform with engineering and architecture partners

Who You Are

• Strategic – able to see the big picture, and a bias for action to own & drive work accordingly
• Dynamic – ability to navigate breadth and depth of skills from senior leadership presentations to getting hands dirty with design & build efforts
• Curious – continuously learning how to creatively use AI to further our purpose to save our planet
• Collaborative– skilled at working with cross-functional teams, empathetic to your partners in driving to solutions for the greater good
• Purpose-Led – You like coming to work each day & making the lives of those around you better, while actively furthering our purpose
• Adaptable – able to work in a dynamic environment and be a key contributor on a growing team

Experience You Bring

• 10+ years of analytical modeling experience with a Bachelor's degree or equivalent work experience in: Computer Science, Economics, Statistics, Mathematics, Operations Research, Information Systems, Analytics, or other relevant expertise
• Proven experience in advanced analytics, data science and/or AI leadership roles, ideally within consumer goods, retail, or sustainability-focused organizations
• Experience with multiple applied retail advanced analytics problems such as Forecasting, NLP, Image Recognition, Clustering and Segmentation, Optimization & Attribution
• Familiarity with retail domains such as customer segmentation, demand forecasting, pricing & promotion optimization, inventory optimization, marketing modeling & attribution & product attribution
• Familiarity with GenAI concepts, models and platforms
• Proficiency in programming languages such as Python, R, or Julia
• Experience with ML frameworks such as PyTorch and/or Tensorflow
• Cloud-based data platform experience – Snowflake/Databricks/AWS/Google/Azure
• Experience enabling a broader community of contributors (e.g. data analysts) in analytics efforts
• Experience with Product-Centric, agile delivery
• Experience applying CI/CD best practices in an analytics context

• Bonus skills that are a plus:

• Familiarity with data pipeline tools such as DBT, Fivetran, Stitch, Boomi, LogicApps

• Business intelligence (BI) tools experience (Tableau, PowerBI, metabase, etc)

Hiring range:
$195,000 to $225,000 USD Annual

At Patagonia, pay ranges are assigned to a job based on the location specific market median of similar jobs according to 3rd party salary benchmark surveys. Individual pay within that range can vary for several reasons including skills/capabilities, experience, and available budget.

Employee Conduct
It is the responsibility of every employee to contribute to a positive, inclusive work environment through cooperative and professional interactions with co-workers, customers and vendors.

Equal Employment Opportunity
All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, protected veteran status, disability, or any other factors prohibited by law.