Data Scientist II - Analytics Engine Optimization

JOB OVERVIEW

The Insights and Analytics organization within General Mills’ Strategy and Growth function is responsible to deliver integrated consumer, customer, category, and business performance insights to power smarter, faster decisions and next-best actions, enabling precision in brand strategies, campaign execution, media and investment optimization across our US businesses and brands. The Insights and Analytics org has integrated teams operating from our Minneapolis and India offices. This is a newly created Data Scientist II role within our Analytics Engine Optimization org and will be based in our India office.

Purpose of the role

As a Data Scientist II on the Analytics Engine Optimization team, you will be responsible for conducting analysis, applying statistical and mathematical techniques, and developing models to support digital marketing measurement and investment optimization across our global portfolio. The role will measure and analyze digital, investment, and sales data to evaluate marketing effectiveness, support optimization efforts, and serve as the Marketing Analytics SME. In this role you will partner across Insights & Analytics, The Agency, Digital & Technology, Sales, Finance, Operating Units (OUs), and Business Units (BUs) to leverage Data and Advanced Analytics to solve problems and implement key initiatives.

KEY ACCOUNTABILITIES

• Partner with marketing and business stakeholders to define analytical problems, success criteria, data requirements, and measurable business outcomes.
• Develop and implement data-driven solutions using advanced analytics and machine learning techniques to measure marketing effectiveness.
• Build, validate, and maintain causal inference pipelines and measurement strategies such as Marketing Mix Models.
• Create statistical and machine learning models to quantify the campaigns and interactions that affect consumers’ purchase behavior.
• Build statistical model-based Omni-channel marketing solutions to optimize investment and maximize impact across different channels.
• Develop attribution model solutions to optimize the delivery and timing of marketing initiatives across different channels and audiences.
• Design, recommend, and measure statistically proven A/B tests by applying best practices.
• Communicate insights, model outputs, and recommendations clearly to non-technical audience.
• Partner with third-party vendors/agencies to define measurement strategy. Ensure the necessary data will be available at the right level to enable evaluation and optimization of marketing programs.
• Construct production ready, reusable, large scale or scalable complex optimization, simulation & machine learning models that provide real time insights aligning with General Mills Data Science standards.
• Contribute to existing Data Science projects and initiatives.
• Develop forecasts and build simulation models to predict the outcome of complex and real-world scenarios.
• Responsible for monitoring and improvement of model performance metrics in terms of accuracy, optimal near optimal recommendations with feedback incorporated from business partners.
• Understand both current uses and future state of promotional planning/optimization at General Mills, capture ongoing needs, and support integration with existing systems, data sets, reports.
• Provide thought leadership and apply creative analytical solutions to ad-hoc projects.
• Possess R&D mindset by prototyping and carrying out tests.
• Influence, educate, and train the organization to adopt new processes and systems
• Vet Analytics components with 3rd-party tools, evaluating their performance and providing recommendations to help drive procurement decisions.
• Mix analytical insights with business knowledge to build solutions that work in the real world

MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS

• Bachelor’s Degree in Statistics, Mathematics, Operations Research, Physics, or related quantitative discipline
• At least 5+ years of relevant experience in Data Science, Modeling, and Advanced Analytics
• Expertise in problem-solving including experience/knowledge of statistical measurement, forecasting, and econometrics
• Working knowledge in statistical algorithms, predictive modeling techniques, especially Regression, Bayesian, Classification, Boosting, and Optimization models
• Strong SQL skills
• Expertise level knowledge in Python or R
• Working knowledge of relational databases and Cloud-based environment such as GCP
• Experience working data visualization tools (e.g. Tableau), and data integration platforms (e.g. Alteryx, Talend)
• Experience in Data Mining, building and working with APIs
• Familiarity with Data Clean Room technology.
• Proven knowledge and understanding of development in Agile environment
• Exceptional Communication Skills – ability to clearly and simply communicate complex results to a wide range of audiences
• Learning agility – ability to work in white space to build new analytical processes and tools
• Familiarity with syndicated data sets (Nielsen/IRI).