Staff Applied Scientist

About Tekion:

Positively disrupting an industry that has not seen any innovation in over 50 years Tekion has challenged the paradigm with the first and fastest cloud-native automotive platform that includes the revolutionary Automotive Retail Cloud (ARC) for retailers Automotive Enterprise Cloud (AEC) for manufacturers and other large automotive enterprises and Automotive Partner Cloud (APC) for technology and industry partners. Tekion connects the entire spectrum of the automotive retail ecosystem through one seamless platform. The transformative platform uses cutting-edge technology big data machine learning and AI to seamlessly bring together OEMs retailers/dealers and consumers. With its highly configurable integration and greater customer engagement capabilities Tekion is enabling the best automotive retail experiences ever. Tekion employs close to 3000 people across North America Asia and Europe.

Tekionseeksan exceptionally talented and seasoned Staff / Lead Applied Scientist to architect the future of our AI-driven solutions. The incumbent will assume a pivotal role in our organization providing the strategic and technical stewardship necessary to translatecutting-edgeresearch into tangible business value. The ideal candidate is a first-principles thinker adept at navigating ambiguity andpossessesthe intellectual curiosity to formulate and solve complex unstructured problems. This isseminalopportunityto influence the trajectory of our AI strategy and deliver transformative solutions at an enterprise scale.

Key Responsibilities

• Strategic Direction: Architect and execute the strategic vision for applied AI and Machine Learningwithin Tekion ensuring rigorous alignment with overarching businessobjectivesand industrychallenges.

• Innovation & Research Leadership: Steer the R&D roadmap byidentifyingand capitalizing onemergent technological opportunities. Drive innovation through the ideation and implementation ofnovelscientifically-groundedsolutions.

• Stakeholder Alignment: Serve as the principal technical liaison between the R&D organization andexecutive stakeholders ensuring technical strategies are congruent with business imperatives.

• Cross-Functional Execution: Lead collaborations with product engineering and business units todefine develop and integrate sophisticated machine learning systems into core products and services.

• Scientific Contribution: Contribute to the broader scientific community through publications inpremier academic conferences and journals enhancingTekionsposition as a center of innovation.

• Mentorship & Talent Development: Mentor and cultivate a culture of scientific rigor and innovationamong applied scientists guiding project execution and fostering professional growth.

• Impact Quantification:Establishrobust frameworks for model evaluation and performancemeasurement. Quantify and articulate the business impact of machine learning initiatives to executiveleadership.

• Governance & Best Practices: Institute and govern best practices for the entire machine learninglifecycle including model development validation deployment and monitoring while championingethical and responsible AI

Core Competencies & Technical Expertise

The successful candidate willdemonstratemastery in the following areas:

• Foundational Expertise: Deeptheoreticaland practicalexpertisein Machine Learning DeepLearningCausal Inference and Explainable AI.

• Statistical Rigor: Advancedproficiencyin applied probability and statistics to derive andvalidateinsights from complex high-dimensional data.
  
  

Deep Learning:

• Expert-levelproficiencywith frameworks such as TensorFlowKeras andPyTorch.

• Extensive experience implementing advanced neural network architectures.

• Practical application of Computer Vision (e.g. OpenCV) and Natural Language Processing() methodologies.

• Large Language Models (LLMs):Demonstratedexperience with Large Language Models includingadvanced prompt engineering fine-tuning and deployment for specific business applications.

Technical Proficiencies:

• Advanced programming skills in Python and mastery of SQL. Familiarity with distributed computing frameworks (e.g. Spark) isadvantageous.

• Proficiencywith cloud computing platforms (GCP Azure AWS).

• Expertise inexperimental design (A/B testing causal inference).

• Proficient in version control systems (Git).

Required Qualifications

• An advanced degree (Ph.D. or M.S. preferred) in a quantitative discipline such as ComputerScience Statistics Operations Research Physics ora relatedfield.

• A minimum of 7 - 9 years of post-academic experience in applied science or quantitativeresearch roles with a demonstrable history of translating complex models into tangiblebusiness value.

• A distinguishedtrack recordof solving difficult business-critical problems using a scientificdata-driven approach.

• Proven experience in programming data manipulation and building models in a businesscontext.

• Sophisticated data visualization and presentation skills with the ability to distill complexanalytical results into clear actionable insights for diverse audiences.
  

Ideal Candidate Profile

• A profound intellectual curiosity and a systematic first-principles approach to problem-solving.

• Domainexpertisein the automotive industry or related fields such as finance or enterprise SaaS ishighly desirable.

• Experience in specialized areas such as Recommendation Engines oradvancedNLP is preferred.

• Exceptional communication and presentation capabilities with a proven ability to distillcomplextechnical concepts for executive-level audiences.

• A demonstrated ability to work collaboratively and effectively lead initiatives across multi-disciplinaryteams.

• A commitment to continuous personal and team development within a collaborative high-performance culture.

Perks and Benefits

• Competitive compensation

• Generous stock options

• Medical Insurance coverage

• Work with some of the brightest minds from Silicon Valleys most dominant and successfulcompanies

Tekion is proud to be an Equal Employment Opportunity employer. We do not discriminate based upon race religion color national origin gender (including pregnancy childbirth or related medical conditions) sexual orientation gender identity gender expression age status as a protected veteran status as an individual with a disability victim of violence or having a family member who is a victim of violence the intersectionality of two or more protected categories or other applicable legally protected characteristics.

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