Lead Data Scientist

At Northern Tool + Equipment we get up every day to serve the tradespeople who keep our country running strong and the weekend warriors who want to work like them. It’s our mission to make sure they have the right tools for the job, and an easy, hassle-free experience at our store so they can get in, get out and get on with the job r top priority as a Lead Data Scientist is to lead high-impact projects that enable strategic decision-making through advanced modeling approaches—combining classical statistical rigor with modern machine learning methods.

Individuals in this role bring strong business acumen, technical leadership, and the ability to convert complex data into actionable insights. Your positive, professional, roll-up-your-sleeves-to-help attitude contributes to our winning culture and makes sure we leave a lasting impression.

• Strategic Modeling & Analytics
  • Lead the design and development of models for:
  • Time series forecasting
  • Causal inference and hypothesis testing
  • Marketing effectiveness, incrementality, and customer loyalty/switching behavior
  • Consumer segmentation and targeting using supervised and unsupervised learning
• Embedding & Dimensionality Reduction
  • Apply embedding techniques (e.g., entity embeddings, word/product vectors) for dimensionality reduction, behavior modeling, and audience discovery
  • Use and interpret customer and product space representations through PCA, UMAP, t-SNE, and similar techniques
  • Develop and evaluate predictive models using:
    • Classification methods (e.g., logistic regression, random forests, SVMs, neural networks)
    • Regression techniques (e.g., elastic net, boosted trees, ensemble models)
    • Deep learning frameworks (e.g., PyTorch, Tensor Flow, Keras)
• Measurement & Business Insights
  • Build models to assess brand performance, promotional impact, and audience-level lift
  • Contribute to and help shape the analytics roadmap across Marketing, Merchandising, and Digital to support long-term business growth
  • Promote data science best practices, including cloud-based model development, version control (Git), and scalable training pipelines
  • Partner with Data Engineering and BI teams to integrate and deploy scalable analytic solutions
  • Mentor junior data scientists, conduct code reviews, and uphold high standards in statistical and modeling practices
  • Performs related work as apparent or assigned
• What you will bring to the table
  • 5–7 years of experience in data science, applied statistics, or advanced analytics roles
  • Master’s degree is preferred in Statistics, Data Science, Applied Mathematics, Economics, or a related quantitative field
  • Strong programming skills in Python and SQL; hands-on experience with tools like scikit-learn, XGBoost, Light
    
    GBM, Tensor Flow, or Py Torch
  • Demonstrated expertise in:
    • Statistical modeling (e.g., regression, causal inference, time series, clustering, dimensionality reduction)
    • Machine learning and embedding-based methods
    • Experience working with consumer datasets such as purchase behavior, panel data, or CRM systems
  • Proven success leading cross-functional project teams or mentoring junior analysts/scientists
  • Background in retail, CPG, ecommerce, or media industries is strongly preferred
  • Familiarity with marketing measurement techniques such as incrementality testing and personalization modeling
  • Strong communication skills and stakeholder management capabilities
  • Thorough knowledge of Company policies and procedures as they relate to network setup and administration
  • Demonstrated ability to develop, write and test programs
  • Ability to communicate effectively, both orally and in writing, with a wide variety of customers, Company personnel and others
  • Demonstrates Northern Tool + Equipment’s 12 Core Competencies

Northern Tool + Equipment is a family business with roots stretching back three generations to Minnesota’s Iron Range, where our blue-collar work ethic and commitment to serving the people who do the tough jobs was born. Our mission is to be the best in the world at serving the professional tradespeople and those who want to work like them. With over 130 retail stores across 24 states, top national brands and global manufacturing operations…