Senior Data Scientist, Search and Recommendations

CarMax, the way your career should be! 

Sr. Data Scientist, Search and Recommendations
 
About The Team 
The Personalization data science team builds and maintains search algorithms and recommender systems that are at the forefront of creating a modern, engaging, digital shopping experience for our customers. We see millions of customers every week across web and mobile. We deploy custom deep learning embedding models, ranking and segmentation algorithms, and are constantly testing new approaches. Our systems are used in dozens of product use cases across the retail and wholesale businesses, which means we partner with many diverse teams throughout the organization.

About The Role 
Understanding our business - the used vehicle market, our customers, and our digital products - is at the heart of what we do on this team. Our data is massive, rich, and often challenging to work with. In this role you will develop and maintain ML models that deliver a highly personalized experience for our customers, driving measurable impact to critical business metrics such as online engagement, lead initiation, and sales.  You will also design and execute rigorous statistical tests that allow us to measure these impacts and optimize our systems. You'll work side by side with ML engineers on model deployments and service design, which means you'll be part of the end-to-end ML lifecycle and not just stuck in notebooks.  If you love data and get excited about search and recommender algorithms, this role is for you.

What You Will Do – Essential Responsibilities 
•    Design, develop, deploy, and maintain ML products that create personalized experiences for our customers
•    Analyze large-scale behavioral data (search queries, click-through rates, purchase patterns, inventory turnover) to surface insights about customer preferences and system performance
•    Design, execute, and interpret statistical tests (A/B tests, holdout experiments, pre/post analyses) to measure the impact of algorithm changes and new features
•    Partner with ML engineers on model deployment and ML product development (API’s, data services, etc.)
•    Translate complex data and ML findings into clear narratives for technical and non-technical stakeholders alike
•    Partner closely with cross functional teams in Product, Strategy, Technology, and Operations
•    Stay current on research and best practices in recommender systems and search; bring new ideas to the team

Qualifications and Requirements 
•    3+ years of experience in a data science role, preferably in e-commerce, marketplace, or a data-rich environment
•    Degree in quantitative discipline field such as math, data science, statistics, computer science
•    Advanced degree (Master’s/Ph.D.) is preferred
•    Strong Python skills and experience with SQL for data manipulation, analysis, and model development, as well as foundational software development experience
•    Solid foundation in statistics, including hypothesis testing, confidence intervals, and experimental design - you should be comfortable explaining why a test result is or isn't significant
•    Experience working with large datasets using tools like Spark, Databricks, or similar
•    Experience with recommender systems, search/ranking algorithms, or embeddings is a plus—but if you haven't worked on these yet and are eager to learn, we'll get you there
•    Comfort with ambiguity and ability to drive clarity when requirements are fuzzy 
•    Collaborative mindset—you enjoy working with engineers, PMs, and analysts, not just other data scientists
 

Work Location and Arrangement 

This role will be based out of the CarMax Technology Innovation Center (Richmond, VA) and associates will work onsite 4 days per week. 

Work Authorization:  Applicants must be currently authorized to work in the United States on a full-time basis.  Sponsorship will not be considered for this specific role.

About CarMax

CarMax disrupted the auto industry by delivering the honest, transparent and high-integrity experience customers want and deserve. This innovative thinking around the way cars are bought and sold has helped us become the nation’s largest retailer of used cars, with over 200 locations nationwide.

Our amazing team of more than 25,000 associates work together to deliver iconic customer experiences. Along the way, we help every associate grow their career and achieve their best, at work and in their community.  We are recognized for our commitment to training and diversity and are one of the FORTUNE 100 Best Companies to Work For®.

Our Commitment to Diversity and Inclusion:

CarMax is committed to bringing together people from different backgrounds and perspectives, providing employees with a safe, welcoming, and inclusive work environment.

CarMax is an equal opportunity employer, and all qualified candidates will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, genetic information, national origin, protected veteran status, disability status, and any other characteristics protected by law.

Upon an applicant's request, CarMax will consider reasonable accommodation to complete the CarMax Job Application.

The annual salary for this position is:

May be eligible for bonus and equity.

Benefits:

Except as otherwise required by state law, CarMax Associates are entitled to the following paid sick, vacation, and holiday time.

Associates that are considered full-time hourly or commission/incentive eligible:

• To earn up to 48 hours of sick time per year accrued on a per pay period basis and between 80 hours and 200 hours per year of vacation time after a 90 day waiting period depending on years of continuous service with the Company. 
• For 8 hours of pay for each of a total of 6 paid scheduled holidays per year plus 1 floating holiday.  If such an Associate does work on a scheduled holiday due to business need, they are eligible for Holiday Premium Pay. 

Associates considered full-time salaried are entitled to paid time away with no specified limit as needed for sick, vacation, bereavement, jury duty, holidays, floating holiday, etc. subject to manager approval. 

For more details about benefits, please visit our CarMax Benefits website.

Upon an applicant's request, CarMax will consider reasonable accommodation to complete the CarMax Job Application.