Principal Data Scientist — Chicago

We’re building a world of health around every individual — shaping a more connected, convenient and compassionate health experience. At CVS Health®, you’ll be surrounded by passionate colleagues who care deeply, innovate with purpose, hold ourselves accountable and prioritize safety and quality in everything we do. Join us and be part of something bigger – helping to simplify health care one person, one family and one community at a time. POSITION SUMMARY CVS Health is seeking a highly innovative, hands-on, and technically accomplished Principal Data Scientist to serve as the senior technical leader for the Excalibur team, a strategic organization responsible for building advanced data, analytics, machine learning, and generative AI solutions that improve IT operations and productivity for more than 350,000 CVS Health colleagues. As a Principal Data Scientist, you will play a critical role in shaping the future of AI-driven operational excellence across CVS Health. This role combines deep technical execution with people leadership, offering the opportunity to architect and deliver enterprise-scale machine learning models, AI agents, advanced analytics platforms, and generative AI solutions that directly impact the colleague experience and technology operations across one of the largest healthcare organizations in the United States. The Principal Data Scientist will serve as the technical anchor for the Excalibur team, leveraging the Excalibur Data Lake, a unified Databricks platform that brings together colleague, application, operational, and telemetry data. You will personally design, build, deploy, and monitor production-grade AI and machine learning solutions while leading and mentoring a team of talented data scientists, engineers, and analysts. This is an exciting opportunity for a Principal Data Scientist who wants to remain close to the code while influencing technical strategy, advancing enterprise AI maturity, and developing high-performing teams. The role provides significant executive visibility, ownership of mission-critical AI initiatives, exposure to cutting-edge technologies, and the opportunity to create measurable business impact at enterprise scale. Success in this role will position you as a key technical leader driving the next generation of data and AI capabilities across CVS Health.   RESPONSIBILITIES • 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, transforming application, operational, and telemetry data into trusted enterprise assets. • Architect and deliver self-service analytics, interactive reporting, and conversational "chat with your data" experiences that enable data-driven decision making 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 related to 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 technical 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 QUALIFICATIONS • 10+ years in Data Science, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, or Advanced Analytics, delivering production-ready solutions and measurable business outcomes within 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 Large Language Models (LLMs), AI agents, and related AI-powered applications within enterprise environments. • 3+ years leading or mentoring data scientists and engineers, conducting technical design and code reviews, building analytics and visualization solutions, and translating complex business challenges into machine learning, analytics, and AI products.   PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS • Master's degree or PhD in Computer Science, Data Science, Statistics, Engineering, Artificial Intelligence, or a related quantitative discipline. • Experience implementing MLOps, model monitoring, LLM observability, and machine learning lifecycle management using platforms such as MLflow, Arize AI, Databricks or similar tools. • Experience developing and deploying CI/CD pipelines, DevOps practices, and automated software delivery frameworks for data science and machine learning solutions leveraging GitHub Actions. • Experience building forecasting, anomaly detection, recommendation, scoring, or optimization models within large-scale enterprise environments. • Experience with Databricks Unity Catalog, enterprise data governance, data sharing frameworks, and modern data management practices. • Strong communication and influencing skills, with the ability to translate complex technical concepts into actionable insights for technical and non-technical stakeholders. • Publications, patents, conference presentations, open-source contributions, or other demonstrated achievements in machine learning, analytics, artificial intelligence, or generative AI.   EDUCATION Bachelor’s degree from an accredited university or equivalent work experience (High School Diploma/GED plus 4 years of relevant experience).   BUSINESS OVERVIEW Bring your heart to CVS Health. Every one of us at CVS Health shares a single, clear purpose: Bringing our heart to every moment of your health . This purpose guides our commitment to deliver enhanced human-centric healthcare for a rapidly changing world. Anchored in our brand — with heart at its center — our purpose sends a personal message that how we deliver our services is just as important as what we deliver. Our Heart At Work Behaviors™ support this purpose. We want everyone who works at CVS Health to feel empowered by the role they play in transforming our culture and accelerating our ability to innovate and deliver solutions to make healthcare more personal, convenient, and affordable. We strive to promote and sustain a culture of diversity, inclusion, and belonging every day. CVS Health is an affirmative action employer and is an equal opportunity employer, as are the physician-owned businesses for which CVS Health provides management services. We do not discriminate in recruiting, hiring, promotion, or any other personnel action based on race, ethnicity, color, national origin, sex/gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, religion, age, disability, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable federal, state, or local law. We proudly support and encourage people with military experience (active duty, veterans, reservists, National Guard members, and military spouses) to apply for CVS Health job opportunities. Pay Range The typical pay range for this role is: $144,200.00 - $288,400.00 This pay range represents the base hourly rate or base annual full-time salary for all positions in the job grade within which this position falls.  The actual base salary offer will depend on a variety of factors including experience, education, geography and other relevant factors.  This position is eligible for a CVS Health bonus, commission or short-term incentive program in addition to the base pay range listed above.  This position also includes an award target in the company’s equity award program.    Our people fuel our future. Our teams reflect the customers, patients, members and communities we serve and we are committed to fostering a workplace where every colleague feels valued and that they belong. Great benefits for great people We take pride in offering a comprehensive and competitive mix of pay and benefits that reflects our commitment to our colleagues and their families. This full‑time position is eligible for a comprehensive benefits package designed to support the physical, emotional, and financial well‑being of colleagues and their families. The benefits for this position include medical, dental, and vision coverage, paid time off, retirement savings options, wellness programs, and other resources, based on eligibility. Additional details about available benefits are provided during the application process and on Benefits Moments . We anticipate the application window for this opening will close on: 10/31/2026 Qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records will be considered for employment in accordance with all federal, state and local laws.