Lead Data Scientist (Gen AI/ML) - Charlotte, NC (Locals)

Dice is the leading career destination for tech experts at every stage of their careers. Our client, Collaborate Solutions, Inc., is seeking the following. Apply via Dice today! Lead Data Scientist (Gen AI/ML) - 2 open - Hybrid onsite in Charlotte, NC (candidates must currently be located in Charlotte, NC area or willing to relocate to be onsite from day one) Position Type: 12 month Contract position with strong possibility of extension. Interview Process: 4 to 5 rounds (Virtual) Dislikes on Resumes: • Generic ML experience without any LLM, agentic, or applied AI work. • Heavy reliance on low-code/no-code ML platforms without demonstrated software engineering capability. • Lack of hands-on involvement in end-to-end model deployment or evaluation. Below are the MUST have Non-Negotiable Required Skills: • Hands-on experience with LLMs, including prompt engineering, fine-tuning, or agentic architectures (LangGraph, AutoGen, CrewAI, etc.). • Strong programming skills in Python, with experience in building scalable ML/AI applications. • Model evaluation expertise for LLM-based systems, including designing metrics and running A/B tests or offline experiments. • Agentic or Applied AI work • Very strong Python experience • LangChain / LangGraph / CrewAI / AutoGen (any relevant) • Hugging Face Transformers • Vector DBs (e.g., FAISS, Weaviate, Pinecone) • Git, VS Code, and cloud platforms (Google Cloud Platform preferred) Highly Preferred Skills • Experience with retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) and knowledge graphs, vector Databases. • Retail or digital experience. • Designing custom evaluation pipelines for hallucination detection, factual consistency, and user relevance. • Familiarity with frameworks like TruLens, Ragas, Promptfoo, or ReAct-style evaluation loops. • Implementing guardrails to ensure safety, compliance, or brand alignment in LLM outputs. • Prior exposure to PhD-level research or applied LLM work in industry or academia. Day To Day Responsibilities • Contribute to the development of a Knowledge Assistant for the Pro & Services organization, with a focus on natural language understanding and agentic workflows. • Build, evaluate, and iterate on LLM-powered agents to support task execution, reasoning, and retrieval across structured and unstructured data. • Collaborate closely with product managers, engineers, and other data scientists to integrate intelligent systems into customer and associate-facing platforms. • Own model evaluation and validation pipelines, especially for LLM and RAG workflows, including performance tracking and ablation studies. • Write clean, production-grade Python code and contribute to reusable components and pipelines. • Apply critical thinking and analytical problem-solving to identify patterns, define rules, and optimize agent behaviors. Any additional details: • This position will join a high-impact, fast-moving team driving AI innovation for Pro & Services customers. The focus will be on leveraging emerging LLM technologies to simplify and personalize complex retail workflows. A self-starter mindset, curiosity, and the ability to navigate ambiguity are key traits for success.