Principal Data Scientist

CVS Health is building a world of health around every individual, with a more connected, convenient, and compassionate experience. The Excalibur team is hiring a Principal Data Scientist to serve as a senior technical leader, delivering production-grade machine learning, AI agents, analytics platforms, and generative AI solutions that support IT operations and colleague productivity.

This full-time, onsite role in Rhode Island combines hands-on technical delivery with people leadership and enterprise-scale data platform ownership. The position offers a salary range of USD 144,200 - 288,400 per year, and eligibility for a CVS Health bonus, commission, or short-term incentive program in addition to base pay, plus an equity award program award target.

What you’ll do

• Design, develop, deploy, and monitor machine learning models, predictive analytics solutions, and generative AI applications that improve IT operations, colleague productivity, and business outcomes.
• Build and maintain scalable data pipelines, data products, and curated datasets on Databricks, turning application, operational, and telemetry data into trusted enterprise assets.
• Architect and deliver self-service analytics, interactive reporting, and conversational “chat with your data” experiences to enable data-driven decisions across technology and business teams.
• Write and review production-quality Python, SQL, and Spark code, while establishing best practices for software engineering, data quality, testing, model development, AI governance, and MLOps.
• Own the team’s technical roadmap and drive architecture decisions across machine learning approaches, feature engineering, model selection, validation strategies, AI frameworks, and platform design.
• Partner with product managers, business stakeholders, engineers, architects, and technology leaders to prioritize opportunities, align solutions to business needs, and deliver measurable value.
• Lead, mentor, and develop a high-performing team of data scientists, engineers, and analysts through coaching, technical reviews, career development, and a culture of continuous learning and innovation.

Required experience

• 10+ years in Data Science, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, or Advanced Analytics, delivering production-ready solutions with measurable business outcomes in complex enterprise environments.
• 6+ years developing production-quality solutions using Python, SQL, and Spark, including testing, version control, and software engineering best practices.
• 4+ years building scalable data pipelines, managing data quality at scale, and supporting cloud-based data lake architectures, including 3+ years with Databricks or a comparable modern data and AI platform.
• 2+ years designing and deploying Generative AI solutions, including LLMs and AI agents and related applications in enterprise environments.
• 3+ years leading or mentoring data scientists and engineers, including technical design and code reviews, building analytics and visualization solutions, and translating complex business challenges into ML, analytics, and AI products.

Technologies you’ll work with

Python, SQL, Spark, Databricks, Generative AI, Large Language Models (LLMs), AI agents, LLM observability, MLOps, MLflow, Arize AI, Databricks Unity Catalog, GitHub Actions, CI/CD, DevOps

Education

• Bachelor’s degree from an accredited university or equivalent work experience (High School Diploma/GED plus 4 years of relevant experience).

Benefits and support

• A comprehensive benefits package designed to support the physical, emotional, and financial well-being of colleagues and their families.
• Medical, dental, and vision coverage
• Paid time off
• Retirement savings options
• Wellness programs
• Other resources based on eligibility

More about CVS Health

OUR PEOPLE FUEL OUR FUTURE. Our teams reflect the customers, patients, members, and communities we serve, and CVS Health is committed to fostering a workplace where every colleague feels valued and that they belong.

Equal opportunity

CVS Health does not discriminate in recruiting, hiring, promotion, or any other personnel action based on protected characteristics under applicable law. Qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records will be considered in accordance with federal, state, and local laws.