[Hiring] Lead Data Scientist @Hilton Grand Vacations

Role Description

The Lead Data Scientist, AI Engineering sets technical direction for advanced analytics, machine learning, and applied AI that improve business performance and member/guest experience at Hilton Grand Vacations. This role designs and delivers analytical products and AI-powered solutions—from classical prediction and recommender systems to LLM-orchestrated pipelines, agents, and generative experiences—on Databricks and the broader Azure stack.

• Primary domains include Inventory Management, Sales Efficiency, Marketing, Member/Guest Satisfaction, Operational Reporting, and Digital Analytics.
• Partners with MLOps, Operational Reporting, IT, and product stakeholders to define scalable patterns for model and AI application lifecycle management.
• Governs quality and risk for production assets, and elevates delivery quality across the analytics community.

Responsibilities

• Define and prioritize an analytics, ML, and AI engineering roadmap; translate business strategy into a portfolio of models, experiments, LLM applications, and analytical products with clear success metrics.
• Lead end-to-end delivery of complex ML, statistical, and generative AI solutions—from problem framing and data strategy through deployment, monitoring, evaluation, and iteration—in partnership with MLOps and engineering.
• Build and evolve an extensible data science and AI platform on Databricks (Python, SQL, Databricks ML, Model Serving, Asset Bundles) integrated with Azure OpenAI and related services.
• Design and ship applied AI systems relevant to IMA work: prompt and context engineering, LLM orchestration pipelines, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), evaluation harnesses, guardrails, and Copilot/agent workflows that automate operational processes.
• Own architecture and standards for forecasting, recommender/personalization systems, predictive analytics, and production AI apps; ensure reproducibility, documentation, CI/CD readiness, and operational excellence.
• Identify revenue and efficiency opportunities using advanced analytics and AI; initiate projects that bridge operational metrics to financial and customer outcomes.
• Provide a feature store, reusable components, and technical support that accelerate other analytics teams.
• Mentor and coach data scientists and analysts through design reviews, code reviews, and pairing—raising the bar on experimentation, responsible AI, and production quality—without formal supervisory responsibility.
• Respond quickly to high-impact ad-hoc requests; deliver actionable insights and clear recommendations to leadership.
• Perform prediction modeling, customer lifetime value, and related analyses that inform strategy.
• Ensure MLOps / AIOps discipline: maintain production code and assets, monitoring, retraining/refresh patterns, incident response, and reliability for models and generative pipelines.
• Represent IMA analytics with senior business and technology stakeholders: set expectations, manage trade-offs, and communicate implications for operations and financial outcomes.
• Participate in data governance—metrics definitions, data quality, and source improvement—and formulate UX strategies so analytical and AI outputs are adopted by end users.
• Perform additional project-based and ad-hoc analysis as assigned.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Data Science, Computer Science, Statistics, Mathematics, Engineering, or related field.
• 8+ years of experience in data science, machine learning, advanced analytics, or AI engineering, including substantial hands-on model/application development in production environments (candidates with 5–7 years of exceptional production AI/ML delivery will be considered).
• Minimum of 3 years of hands-on experience with Python, SQL, and Databricks (or equivalent lakehouse platforms).
• Proven experience with NLP and/or generative AI technologies (e.g. OpenAI / Azure OpenAI) applied to real business problems.
• Experience with MLOps and maintaining production code, models, and AI pipeline assets.
• Demonstrated ability to mentor peers, lead technical reviews, and set standards—without requiring prior people-manager experience.
• Strong communication skills; ability to present technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders.
• Ability to quickly address ad-hoc requests and deliver actionable insights.
• Proficiency in English, verbal and written.

Benefits

• Recognition Programs and Rewards
• Excellent health care options, including medical, dental, and vision
• A people-first culture
• Go Hilton: Travel Discounts Program Hilton hotel rates worldwide.
• Perks at work: Employee Pricing platform
• Employee Assistance Program that supports your physical and mental well-being.
• Paid Vacation Time and Paid Sick Days
• 401(k) program with company match
• Tuition reimbursement programs
• Numerous learning and advancement opportunities
• And more!