Best Buy is committed to enriching the lives of customers through technology. As a Data Scientist Associate, you will drive changes for the Workforce business team by optimizing labor planning through innovative data capabilities and insights.
Collect, clean, and preprocess large-scale datasets from BigQuery, Teradata, and other sources to create reliable features
Develop hypotheses and conduct exploratory data analysis to discover key predictors and drivers of workforce outcomes
Design, train, validate, and optimize forecasting, scheduling, and labor cost models balancing productivity and fairness metrics
Conduct rigorous experimentation and causal analysis (A/B testing) to evaluate labor interventions’ impact on sales and employee satisfaction
Build and maintain dashboards and reports tracking labor KPIs and model performance
Partner with MLOps teams to prepare models for deployment, ensure version control, enable experiment logging, and implement performance monitoring and incident response protocols
Communicate complex model designs, assumptions, and business impact effectively to stakeholders to support data-driven labor planning and decisions
Qualification
Required
Bachelor's degree in a quantitative field (Data Science, Statistics, Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics, Operations Research, etc.)
2+ years of relevant professional experience in analytics, data science, or a closely related field (or equivalent experience)
2+ years of experience using Python and SQL (e.g., BigQuery, Teradata) for data wrangling, analysis, and modeling, including hands-on use of core data science libraries such as NumPy, Pandas, SciPy, scikit-learn, and statsmodels
2+ years of experience applying statistics, data analysis, and quantitative modeling to diverse business problems; able to design, validate, and clearly communicate predictive, prescriptive, and descriptive models
2+ years of working knowledge of mathematical optimization and operations research; able to formulate and solve decision-making problems (e.g., resource allocation, scheduling, task assignment, inventory, routing) by translating business constraints into mathematical models
2+ years of experience with time-series forecasting methods and libraries (e.g., Prophet, statsmodels) and applying them to real business use cases
2+ years of experience with Git/GitHub or similar version-control systems for collaborative development, code review, and reproducibility
1+ year of experience with cloud ML pipeline orchestration (e.g., Kubeflow on GCP), including CI/CD, artifact and metadata tracking, monitoring execution, and logging model/system metrics
1+ years of experience with Bash or other shell scripting for workflow automation and data pipelines
Preferred
Advanced experience with Python data manipulation and distributed computing libraries such as Polars and Dask. Proficiency with machine learning frameworks beyond the core stack, including XGBoost, LightGBM, CatBoost, PyTorch, and TensorFlow/Keras
Strong grounding in advanced statistical and time-series techniques, including hypothesis testing, ANOVA, ARIMA/SARIMA, ETS, bootstrapping, and regression diagnostics
Expertise in mathematical optimization using solvers such as Gurobi, OR-Tools, PuLP, Pyomo, and CPLEX, with strong knowledge of linear programming, mixed-integer programming (MIP), and duality theory
Deep domain knowledge of retail, workforce, and supply chain operations
Experience with Google Cloud Platform tools including Vertex AI for managing the end-to-end machine learning lifecycle (data preparation, model training, hyperparameter tuning, deployment, and monitoring); familiar with Vertex AI Workbench, AutoML for automated model building, Vertex AI Pipelines for workflow orchestration, Model Registry for managing models, and integration with BigQuery and Cloud Storage for scalable data engineering and analytics
Proficiency in Business intelligence tools: Power BI, Looker, Looker Studio
Backend API development: FastAPI, Flask for prediction and optimization services integrated with operational tools
Master's degree in a quantitative field (Data Science, Statistics, Computer Science, Engineering, Math, Operations Research, etc.)
Benefits
Competitive pay
Generous employee discount
Physical and mental well-being support
Best Buy is a multinational retailer of technology and entertainment products and services offering consumer electronics and more.
