Woolworths

• Permanent role
• Auckland office location with hybrid working
• Work collaboratively with other data professionals to deliver best in class solutions

We strive to create better experiences together for a better tomorrow for our customers and team,  bringing the best of Woolworths Group and Quantium together to make data driven decisions. By partnering with Quantium, a world-class data science and advanced analytics business we’re excited about the future as we unlock the power of data to reimagine retail.

Through this partnership, we’ve created a new business called wiq who will harness the best of Woolworths Group and Quantium to reimagine retail by solving the most complex problems using data and analytics. As a team, we leverage Agile ways of working to help our team develop their skills while also making sure our team is focusing on solving the most complex problems for both our customers and team.

Ready to make an impact?

The purpose of the wiqNZ team is to unlock the power of data to imagine retail, which contributes to making Kiwis’ lives a little better every day.

What you'll do | Hei mahi

The Senior Applied AI and Analytics Scientist plays a critical role in bridging the gap between data and business strategy by addressing and solving specific business problems by leveraging a wide array of available tools and models. The purpose of this role is to drive significant business value by translating complex business problems into advanced analytics solutions, with a strong focus on helping the business to apply AI into actionable insights. You will enjoy partnering with the business to identify key challenges and opportunities. 

You will then use your technical knowledge and toolkit to apply rigorous analysis, statistical modeling, and foundational machine learning to uncover actionable insight from complex data and translate these into clear recommendations that drive strategic decisions, optimise processes, and deliver measurable business value. This includes utilising existing GCP capabilities, custom models developed by our ML teams, and various Group tools to accelerate the analysis process and deliver timely insights.

This role will be instrumental in accelerating our transformation, fostering collaboration with wiqAU, and continuing empowering data-driven decisions, and demonstrating the value of our analytics work.

• Stakeholder Collaboration & Problem Definition: Engage proactively with business to understand their objectives, operational challenges, and key performance indicators. Ability to translate ambiguous business questions into well-defined, data-addressable problem statements and analytical requirements.
• Business Acumen & Communication: Demonstrates strong business acumen to translate business needs into analytical solutions and effectively communicate complex findings to non-technical audiences.
• Data Acquisition & Preparation: Identify, gather, and integrate data from internal and external sources. Perform thorough data cleaning, validation, and transformation to ensure data quality and reliability, for analysis. Conduct exploratory data analysis (EDA) to understand data structure, identify patterns, and formulate initial hypotheses.
• Analytical & Modelling Expertise: Apply a range of statistical methods (e.g., hypothesis testing, regression analysis, time series analysis) and foundational machine learning algorithms (e.g., clustering, classification, decision trees) to analyse data, identify significant trends, patterns, correlations, and causal relationships relevant to the defined business problem. Develop and test analytical models to evaluate hypotheses and quantify the potential impact of different business strategies or interventions.
• Insight Generation & Recommendation: Distil complex analytical results into clear, concise, and actionable insights that directly address the business questions. Develop evidence-based recommendations for action, outlining potential benefits, risks, and implementation considerations.
• Communication & Visualisation: Create compelling data stories to effectively communicate findings and recommendations to non-technical audiences, including senior leadership. Prepare compelling presentations.
• New tech and tool Adoption & Innovation: Champions AI adoption, explores generative AI, and develops best-in-class methodologies to drive practical,tangible business value. Experiments with analytics tools and existing data products to assist with speed to outcome.Develop best-in-class methodologies and accelerators to be adopted by analytics teams.
• Collaboration & Leadership: Collaborates with cross-functional teams, provides guidance to analysts, and contributes to a culture of collaboration and innovation. Provide guidance and support on analytical methodologies and techniques to Analysts.

What you’ll bring | Hei koha 

• 5+ years of experience developing predictive models and implementing AI solutions in commercial environments.
• Proven experience in statistical and machine learning modeling,including manipulating large datasets.
• Master's or PhD degree in a relevant quantitative field (e.g., Statistics, Data Science, Mathematics, Computer Science, Engineering).
• Advanced working knowledge of analytical programming languages (SQL, Python, R).
• Experience working with cloud-based data analytics platforms (e.g., Google BigQuery).
• Familiarity with A/B testing methodologies and experimental design.
• Ability to translate business needs into analytical solutions and communicate technical findings effectively to influence stakeholders.
•  Commercial acumen to understand business needs and the commercial impacts of analytical solutions.
•  Experience in project management, including scoping, estimating, and delivering projects on time and budget.
•  Strong problem-solving skills and attention to detail.
•  Experience in leading and mentoring teams.
•  FMCG or retail experience is advantageous.

This is a fast paced innovative role and one where you will be empowered to make a significant contribution to making Kiwis’ lives a little better everyday! If you’d like to make a key contribution to the growth of our business, apply today!

Our Benefits 

• Genuine flexibility in how and where you work
• Ongoing development within an ANZ team and access to COE/specialist career opportunities
• Everyday Rewards team card, providing a range of benefits including discounts and bonus points for groceries and discounted online shopping delivery
• Banking and insurance (health, life etc) discounts 
• Global and local career opportunities

Everyone belongs at Woolworths Group 

Diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging are key to realising our purpose of better together for a better tomorrow. We recognise the value our team’s diversity brings to our business, customers, and communities and that teams with diverse experiences and backgrounds enrich our group and are better able to innovate and solve problems. As one of the largest employers in Australia and New Zealand, we aim to create a truly inclusive workplace where everyone feels that they belong, can be their best selves, and reach their full potential.

We encourage all candidates to apply; please let us know in your application if we can support you with any adjustments in the hiring process.