Sr. Data Scientist - Pricing Algorithms

About the Role

CarMax relies on algorithms to make important decisions about which cars to buy, how to price them, and how to allocate them across our 200+ stores. Doing so ensures that we have the right cars at the right prices to meet our customers’ needs. As we continue to innovate our business and shift more of our buying and selling online, we increasingly need to make these decisions quickly with less human intervention. Our team of data scientists and business analysts plays a critical role in unlocking the business value from these innovations.

As an algorithms expert, you will build and support predictive models. Through collaboration and partnership with analysts and systems experts, you will play a key role in ensuring the models are deployed effectively to support our business goals.

What You Will Do – Essential Responsibilities

1) Develop new models and improve our existing models

• Interpret, validate, and apply feature engineering to large and complex pricing-related data sets
• Find creative ways to incorporate new insights and data sources
• Leverage statistical / machine learning techniques and sound reasoning to develop, validate, and improve predictive models
• Design controlled experiments to assess the business value of new models
• Present insights and recommendations to senior leaders to drive change

2) Help CarMax continue to develop its data expertise

• Research innovations and best practices related to data sources, modeling methodologies, and data science tools
• Influence the team in the development of our modeling capability strategic roadmap

3) Effectively communicate how our models work to team members, both at a general level and a detailed level

Qualifications and Requirements

If you’re energized by putting your math, logic, and analytical reasoning skills to the test to solve complex problems then we encourage you to apply to join our team. We frequently offer a variety of roles and recommend checking out all available Pricing positions to find the best fit for your abilities and interests.

For a candidate for this role, we’re looking for the following characteristics

Target mindset: Curious, skeptical, creative, committed to learning and staying informed on the latest techniques in data science, with a strong attention to detail and commitment to sound reasoning

Required experience

• Either a bachelor’s degree in a quantitative discipline OR equivalent experience and training through past employment
• At least 2 years relevant work experience (Advanced study in a quantitative field may substitute for work experience), including experience applying strong foundational math and/or modeling skills to solve complex problems

Ideal candidates would have experience with these behaviors

• Extracting and sharing clear insights from modelling
• Project management, ideally including end-to-end experience with the machine learning deployment pipeline
• Relationship building and collaboration

Preferred skills, certifications, or knowledge areas

• Expertise in selecting and applying various modeling techniques (supervised & unsupervised, classification & regression, etc.),
• Python/SQL programming
• Data cleaning and pre-processing
• Statistical and probabilistic analysis

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.