Senior Data Scientist – Applied AI

WHO WE ARE

We’re not in the wing business. We’re in the flavor business. It’s been our mission to Serve the World Flavor since we first opened in 1994, and we’re just getting started. 1997 saw the opening of our first brand partner operated Wingstop location, and by 2002 we had served the world one billion wings. It’s flavor that defines us and has made Wingstop one of the fastest growing brands in the restaurant industry.

Above all else – our success is largely due to our people and our core values, or what we call The Wingstop Way of being entrepreneurial, service-minded, fun, and authentic. We believe having a strong people foundation centered on these collective values creates a crave-worthy culture and talented team, as well as ensures our brand is poised for accelerated growth. We all win together.

WHAT WE'LL NEED

This role contributes to Wingstop’s success by collaborating with multiple departments to support data driven business decisions through building models that optimize, predict, and generates insights.

Our goal is to translate business questions into usable decision support products, visualizations & self-service tools that democratizes data across the entire Wingstop enterprise.     

Wingstop is looking for full-stack data scientists with experience in machine learning and agent artificial intelligence to join our team. This role reports to our Director of Advanced Analytics and will work closely with Finance, Operations, Marketing and others to support strategic growth initiatives. 

The ideal candidate will have mathematical and statistical expertise, along with natural curiosity and a creative mind. This person will act as the ‘tip of the spear’ building and deploying AI driven solutions supporting use cases from across the firm.

Key Responsibilities:

• Collaboration and Communication:
  • Work closely with stakeholders to understand business objectives and requirements.
  • Collaborate with other data scientists, analysts, and team members to drive AI initiatives.
• Model Building, Optimization and Monitoring:
  • Develop and maintain different AI models tuned for specific business use cases
  • Own the deployment of these models as well as ongoing maintenance, performance, and accuracy of them over timeDevelop tools to monitor data integrity, KPIs and successful model execution for applications in production.
  • Design and deploy contingency plans to protect against ML model failures.
  • Contribute to improve scalability and reliability or solutions deployed in production.

WHAT YOU'LL NEED

• Proficient in Python and SQL, with experience applying machine learning and statistical modeling to solve complex business problems.

• Hands-on experience developing and tuning AI agents

• Experience with LLMs/Lang Graph

• Strong programming skills in Python, with the ability to automate ML pipelines and data workflows.

• Hands on experience working in cloud data-lakes such as Snowflake and/or Databricks for scalable analytics and model building.

• Experience with data modeling (conceptual, logical, physical) to enable robust analytical and predictive solutions.

• Experience building and tuning Generative AI solutions.

• Preferred: experience building Streamlit apps / dashboards.

• Preferred: Experience in the restaurant, retail, or hospitality industry applying data science to improve operations and customer experience.

• BS or Masters with concentration in quantitative discipline - Stats, Math, Comp Sci, Engineering, Econ, Quantitative Social Science or similar discipline.

• Preferred: Certification in data science or analytics (e.g., Certified Analytics Professional, SnowPro Certified Advanced Data Scientist)

• Minimum 5 years of practical work experience applying data science techniques and toolsets to solve practical problems.

WHO YOU ARE

No job is too small. You recognize that the real work happens in the restaurants, and everything we do should support their success. You stay humble, roll up your sleeves, and always look for ways to support. You learn from others and contribute wherever you can.

You care deeply about doing great work and driving results. You’re curious, ask questions, and seek out opportunities to improve. You don’t just point out problems—you bring solutions, ideas, and perspectives that move the team forward.

You take full responsibility for your work and see things through to completion. You aren’t afraid to fail because you know that failure is a part of learning and growth. You take action, move fast, and keep pushing forward.

You lead with empathy, respect, and emotional intelligence. You collaborate effectively, fostering a culture of trust and constructive feedback. You understand the importance of teamwork and ensure that your actions build others up rather than break them down.

You push yourself and others to be better. You embrace healthy conflict, knowing that great ideas and strong teams emerge from honest, constructive conversations. You believe that leaders create leaders and are committed to fostering a culture of growth, challenge, and continuous improvement.

BENEFITS

Flavor Perks:

• Unlimited paid time off for exempt employees

• One paid volunteer day of your choice

• Competitive bonus structure for eligible roles

• Team member stock purchase plan

• Health savings or flexible spending account options

• 401k – (dollar for dollar on the first 3% and then 50 cents on the dollar for the next 2% for team member contributions up to 5% of eligible compensation)

• Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision benefits

• Basic life and AD&D insurance provided

• Pet insurance

• Education Assistance

• Wellness reimbursement program

• Paid maternity and paternity leave

Fun is the best Flavor:

• Lunch provided every Tuesday and Thursday in office

• Discount on Wingstop gift cards

• Onsite game room

Wingstop provides equal opportunities for everyone that works for us and everyone that applies to join our team, without regard to sex or gender, gender identity, gender expression, age, race, religious creed, color, national origin, ancestry, pregnancy, physical or mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, marital status, sexual orientation, any service, past, present, or future, in the uniformed services of the United States (military or veteran status), or any other consideration protected by federal, state, or local law.