Distinguished AI Scientist (Deep Learning Focus)

You want more out of a career. A place to share your ideas freely - even if they're daring or different. Where the true you can learn, grow, and thrive. At Verizon, we power and empower how people live, work and play by connecting them to what brings them joy. We do what we love - driving innovation, creativity, and impact in the world. Our V Team is a community of people who anticipate, lead, and believe that listening is where learning begins. In crisis and in celebration, we come together - lifting our communities and building trust in how we show up, everywhere & always. Want in? Join the V Team Life.

This is a technical lead role with machine learning and deep learning expertise and experience with implementation of AI in commercial applications ($500m plus business applications). This individual will focus on designing large scale AI capabilities that cut across multiple business domains working with and leading the technical roadmap for the data scientist and machine learning engineer teams.

The Distinguished Data Scientist will work closely with data science and engineering teams and the entire data scientist community at Verizon in proactively designing and developing AI capabilities. These AI capabilities will include predictive, prescriptive and adaptive applications for all predictions and inferences at Verizon. Models will typically get implemented on premise, in cloud and/or on the edge and in both real-time and batch mode depending upon the business applications.

At Verizon, we are on a multi-year journey to industrialize our data science and AI capabilities. Very simply, this means that AI will fuel all decisions and business processes across the company. At $130B+ in annual revenue, this is a pioneering opportunity to design and shape AI at scale in the Telco industry. With our leadership in bringing 5G network nationwide, the opportunity for AI will only grow exponentially in going from enabling billions of predictions to possibly trillions of predictions that are automated and real-time. Therefore, it will be critical that this candidate possess previous experience in research and validation of AI and data science techniques.

An ideal candidate will have excellent communication skills, critical thinking, and strategic thought leadership above and beyond the technical knowledge and commercial application experience required. Responsibilities include...

Developing Next Generation AI Capabilities

• Developing the next generation of AI that protects the privacy of our customers and ensures that our modeling practices are ethical and bias free.

• Testing and validating all AI methods for industrial scale. Deploying and managing models throughout the model lifecycle.

Technical Thought Leadership

• Developing next-generation AI capabilities, providing technical thought leadership, and elevating the AI practice

Elevating the AI Practice

• Partnering with academia and startup ecosystem to identify and potentially bring in new AI approach that can be of value to Verizon.

• Staying informed on the latest advancements in AI and technology space, finding ways to deliver value by applying and customizing these to our specific problem space.

• Leading the way in creating AI applications designed with bias considerations and that promotes ethical AI both within Verizon and externally with Verizon's partners.

• Supporting and furthering our best practices and governance routines to ensure adherence to model management policies, peer reviews, and compliance to our policy standards for privacy, ethics, and bias.

• Bachelor's degree or four or more years of work experience.

• Eight or more years of relevant experience required, demonstrated through one or a combination of work and/or military experience, or specialized training.

• 4 or more years of experience in scaling AI in areas like personalization, forecasting, experimentation, computer vision, etc.

• 4 or more years of developing models and algorithms independently, writing your own code, developing strategy for algorithmic experimentation, and deploying in production

• Expert level understanding and ability to explain both the code and the underlying math used in algorithms/models. Must have excellent coding proficiency with demonstrated expertise in python, java, R, etc. Expert level knowledge of AI/ML models, frameworks(keras, pytorch, etc.) and libraries/packages/apis (e.g., scikit)

• Experience with both batch and streaming models in production

• Advanced knowledge of math, probability, statistics, and models

• Experience with Hadoop, AWS or other distributed compute services

• Exposure to data structures, data modeling and software architecture skills

• Excellent communication skills

• Excellent cross-functional collaboration skills

• Outstanding analytical and problem solving skills

• Advanced degree in Computer Science, Mathematics or similar field

If Verizon and this role sound like a fit for you, we encourage you to apply even if you don't meet every "even better" qualification listed above.

We're proud to be an equal opportunity employer - and celebrate our employees' differences, including race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability, and Veteran status. At Verizon, we know that diversity makes us stronger. We are committed to a collaborative, inclusive environment that encourages authenticity and fosters a sense of belonging. We strive for everyone to feel valued, connected, and empowered to reach their potential and contribute their best. Check out our diversity and inclusion page to learn more.