Principal Data Scientist

ABOUT THE POSITION

Although we're an apparel and footwear-focused company, technology is central to everything we do. Columbia Sportswear’s Digital Technology (CDT) group enables an IT infrastructure and applications across four global brands, a global supply chain, and 500+ geographically dispersed stores. These teams support in-store, mobile, and data platforms to enhance customer interface and service in an ever-evolving industry.

The Principal Data Scientist is a member of the Data & Analytics (D&A) team and will support the delivery of innovative analytical solutions to help answer the organization’s pressing challenges and opportunities. This role will focus on developing end-to-end solutions, from prototyping to production-ready complex algorithms.  The candidate will utilize advanced analytics to solve complex business problems and integrate findings into business processes.  This role will have opportunities to engage across the organization with an area of focus in Direct-to-Consumer needs.

HOW YOU’LL MAKE A DIFFERENCE

• Design and build scalable models that leverage best-in-class statistical and machine learning techniques to be integrated into analytics workflows across the business​
• Collaborate with other members of the D&A team and business partners in translating business requirements that can be answered with advanced analytics
• Conduct exploratory data analyses and data mining to understand underlying patterns, trends and behavior to highlight opportunities through data to significantly improve business performance across brands, regions, and channels
• Audit existing analytical processes and provide guidance on implementing advanced machine learning capabilities according to industry standards​
• Under minimal supervision, establish and execute plans to build, implement and maintain predictive models using available tools and programming languages. Manage full life cycle of projects
• Collaborate with Data Engineers to validate source data and develop data pipelines that feed into machine learning workflows
• Translate analytical findings and statistical models into measures of business impact and actionable recommendations
• Drive best practices in applying and deploying Data Science at scale

YOU ARE

• Aptitude to synthesize and create a cohesive picture from a wide variety of information sources
• Solid time-management skills and able to work on multiple tasks or projects concurrently
• Extremely organized, detail-oriented, resourceful and flexible
• Strong interpersonal, written, communication and relationship-building skills
• Able to work and collaborate with cross functional teams, including IT, and manage partner expectations
• A strong communicator that can demonstrate an ability to work with all ranges of an organization to advance Columbia’s Data Science practice.

YOU HAVE

• Minimum Bachelor’s degree in Mathematics, Statistics, Computer Science, Engineering or other relevant quantitative field, with a Graduate degree strongly preferred
• Minimum 3 years of experience as a Data Scientist, Statistician or related position
• Hands-on quantitative experience to include data mining, predictive modeling, machine learning, statistical programming, working with both structured and unstructured data
• Demonstrated capability in rapid prototyping and developing end-to-end solutions using complex algorithms
• Broad understanding of core statistical and ML techniques
• Highly proficient in SQL and other statistical programming languages, e.g., R, Python, SAS
• Proficient in the use of visualization tools, Power BI preferred
• Experience with Microsoft Stack preferred

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