Machine Learning for Supply Chain

About the role:

This is a founding AI/ML role in Samsara's Supply Chain organization—a rare 0-to-1 opportunity to build AI/ML capabilities from the ground up and own demand forecasting, inventory optimization, and supplier risk modeling end-to-end.

You'll design, develop, and deploy advanced machine learning and statistical models that optimize our global supply chain. From forecasting demand to modeling supply risk using real-time IoT signals, you'll apply cutting-edge techniques to solve complex problems with direct business impact.

What makes this unique:

• 11 years of untapped operational data — ERP systems (e.g. NetSuite, E2DP, Propel), IoT sensor streams, Salesforce, Slack, Gong call insights, and real-world hardware telemetry
• Own the full stack: modeling, MLOps, deployment, monitoring—build production systems that drive real business decisions
• Real hardware supply chain: Complex multi-tier supplier networks, lead times, high-stakes NPI ramps
• Direct executive partnership: Report to our SVP of Operations, collaborating cross-functionally with teams in Product, Engineering, Procurement, and Finance

You'll shape the team's roadmap, scientific agenda, and modeling standards. Ideal for a deeply technical IC who thrives in ambiguity, thinks strategically, and enjoys end-to-end ownership.

This role is open to candidates residing in the US & Canada.

Why this role matters:

Real-world impact at massive scale:

• Your forecasting models will help prevent supply shortages for customers in construction, utilities, transportation, and public safety—industries that literally keep the world running
• Optimize inventory for hardware deployed across 98% of US roads and 70+ billion miles driven annually
• Drive sustainability initiatives by reducing waste and improving supply chain efficiency across global operations

Unique technical challenges:

• Build demand forecasting systems for highly variable, seasonal SKUs with intermittent patterns and long lead times
• Model supplier risk using real-time IoT telemetry, geopolitical signals, and market data—not just historical sales
• Design cost optimization algorithms balancing inventory carrying costs, expedite fees, and revenue risk across multiple regions
• Create anomaly detection systems for cellular connectivity spend and supply chain disruptions using multimodal data

A data playground unlike any other:

• Access to 10+ trillion data points annually from connected operations
• Work with ERP data, IoT sensor streams, third-party market intelligence, and operational metrics
• Build features from unique real-world signals—vehicle diagnostics, utilization patterns, failure modes

You should apply if:

• You are motivated by impact: Your work will drive smarter, faster, and more sustainable supply chain decisions across Samsara’s operations.
• You combine scientific rigor with real-world pragmatism: You’re skilled at navigating trade-offs between model complexity, performance, and maintainability.
• You want to work on hard problems: You’ll help tackle forecasting volatility, cost optimization, anomaly detection, and more using large, noisy, high-dimensional datasets. 
• You are a self-directed leader: You identify analytical white space, set multi-quarter plans, and mentor others through influence.
• You enjoy building models that matter: Your solutions will be deployed in production, drive decisions, and be regularly evaluated against business KPIs.

In this role, you will:

• Define the end-to-end AI transformation roadmap for supply chain alongside the SVP of Operations, aligning with company OKRs and executive stakeholders.
• Design, train, validate, and deploy ML models to production (demand forecasting, inventory optimization, supplier risk scoring, cellular spend prediction), ensuring robust MLOps practices and measurable ROI.
• Build predictive models to forecast demand, lead times, and cellular spend across Samsara's global supply network.
• Create novel features using large-scale ERP, IoT, and third-party datasets; build pipelines and ETL jobs to serve models and stakeholders.
• Deliver production-grade code that supports both batch and real-time inference with MLOps best practices.
• Act as the AI liaison to Product, Engineering, Procurement, and Finance—ensuring alignment on data requirements, integration, and change management.
• Drive enhancements to our data infrastructure and analytics platform to support real-time model training, monitoring, and inference at scale.
• Mentor junior scientists through code reviews and collaborative project work.
• Act as a key scientific voice in roadmap planning, experimentation frameworks, and modeling strategy discussions.
• Identify gaps in data, tools, and processes—and lead initiatives to close them.
• Establish governance frameworks, documentation standards, and quality controls for model development, validation, and lifecycle management.
• Partner with Ops management to drive adoption of AI tools, define new processes, and train supply chain teams on insights-driven workflows.
• Hire, develop and lead an inclusive, engaged, and high-performing team.
• Champion Samsara's cultural principles (Focus on Customer Success, Build for the Long Term, Adopt a Growth Mindset, Be Inclusive, Win as a Team) as we scale globally.

Minimum requirements for the role:

Experience & Education:

• 8+ years in applied data science or ML, ideally in supply chain, operations research, logistics, or manufacturing.
• Master's or PhD in Computer Science, Statistics, Data Science, EE, OR, or related technical field.

Core ML & Technical Skills:

• Expert in statistical modeling and ML: time series forecasting, optimization, anomaly detectio