Data Scientist - Assortment Optimization

We’re building a world of health around every individual — shaping a more connected, convenient and compassionate health experience. At CVS Health®, you’ll be surrounded by passionate colleagues who care deeply, innovate with purpose, hold ourselves accountable and prioritize safety and quality in everything we do. Join us and be part of something bigger – helping to simplify health care one person, one family and one community at a time.

Position Summary

The Retail Analytics team is helping lead the effort to drive improved consumer experience by partnering with key business areas across CVS Health to deliver impactful analytic solutions and insights. As a member of the Analytics & Behavior Change (A&BC) Merchandising Analytics team, you will be at the forefront of delivering high visibility projects for key strategic priorities. Specifically, you will have the opportunity to drive revenue and customer satisfaction in CVS Health’s Front Store business by using data science to support a product assortment that better fits the needs of our customers.

In this role, you will have the opportunity to solve complex problems, build predictive models and optimize assortment decisions, working cross-functionally with a range of technical and non-technical stakeholders. We are a fast-paced team focused on building innovative analytics solutions using cloud capabilities. We are looking for individuals who have a keen sense of ownership, accountability, and a desire to deliver high quality work. In this role, you will have the opportunity to:

• Solve complex problems using operations research, dynamic programming, and reinforcement learning, build and improve optimization models to optimize assortment decisions,
• Develop and leverage in-depth knowledge of Retail Merchandising business processes, translate key drivers of business value to analytics opportunities, and simulate impact of business decisions to improve customer experience,
• Guide the technical approach, leverage large datasets, and build scalable and deployment ready models that work well with CVS Retail’s diverse product portfolio, develop robust methodologies to assess model performance,
• Stay up to date on the state-of-the-art modeling methodologies and latest research,
• Utilize the latest developments in the generative models (LLMs and other AI models) to improve and enrich the performance of current models,
• Work cross functionally with a range of technical and non-technical stakeholders including business partners, engineers, and other data and analytics teams. Share progress, findings, recommendations, and their business implications. Present meaningful and insights-driven materials on analytical results with recommendations and go forward planning to guide a variety of audiences including internal stakeholders and senior leadership,

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in a quantitative field such as Operations Research/Industrial Engineering, Applied Mathematics, Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field,
• Strong Python and SQL skills, proficiency in working with large datasets,
• Experience solving pricing, promotions, assortment, or supply chain problems, familiarity with mathematical optimization models using open-source or commercial optimization solvers (such as Pyomo, Gurobi, Pulp, ILOG CPLEX),
• Experience working with a data engineering/MLOps team to deploy data science models, familiarity with version control (GitLab or GitHub), and ML platforms (AWS SageMaker, Databricks, GCP Vertex AI, etc.),
• Excellent communication and presentation skills and attention to detail. Worked in an agile environment, has the flexibility to adapt to changing business needs,
• Ability to communicate technical concepts to non-technical audiences, including experience creating communication materials (e.g., white paper, slide decks, etc.).

Preferred Qualifications

• Master’s degree in a quantitative field,
• 2+ years of work experience in retail, consulting, or a related field,
• Experience developing price optimization models, in depth understanding of merchandising (price, promotion, assortment) concepts and metrics in retail,
• Experience with managing large scale projects and working with multiple business stakeholders.

Anticipated Weekly Hours

Time Type

Pay Range

The typical pay range for this role is:

This pay range represents the base hourly rate or base annual full-time salary for all positions in the job grade within which this position falls.  The actual base salary offer will depend on a variety of factors including experience, education, geography and other relevant factors.  This position is eligible for a CVS Health bonus, commission or short-term incentive program in addition to the base pay range listed above. 
 

Our people fuel our future. Our teams reflect the customers, patients, members and communities we serve and we are committed to fostering a workplace where every colleague feels valued and that they belong.

Great benefits for great people

We take pride in our comprehensive and competitive mix of pay and benefits – investing in the physical, emotional and financial wellness of our colleagues and their families to help them be the healthiest they can be. In addition to our competitive wages, our great benefits include:

• Affordable medical plan options, a 401(k) plan (including matching company contributions), and an employee stock purchase plan.

• No-cost programs for all colleagues including wellness screenings, tobacco cessation and weight management programs, confidential counseling and financial coaching.

• Benefit solutions that address the different needs and preferences of our colleagues including paid time off, flexible work schedules, family leave, dependent care resources, colleague assistance programs, tuition assistance, retiree medical access and many other benefits depending on eligibility.

For more information, visit https://jobs.cvshealth.com/us/en/benefits

Qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records will be considered for employment in accordance with all federal, state and local laws.