Principal Data Scientist / AI Engineer

Description POSITION TITLE: Principal Data Scientist (P5) For more than three decades, Crown Castle has led the way in shared communications infrastructure, delivering profitable solutions by connecting communities, businesses, and people, and enabling each to thrive with reliable access to voice and data in more places, faster than ever before. When you join Crown Castle, you become part of a dynamic team of passionate and collaborative professionals engaging in complex challenges and contributing to projects that shape the future of life and work. ABOUT THE ROLE This role focuses on designing, building, and deploying production-ready AI solutions that support enterprise workflows across operations, engineering, finance, and corporate functions. You will work at the intersection of applied research and software engineering, translating modern AI capabilities into secure, reliable, and scalable systems used in business-critical environments. This role offers the opportunity to work on real enterprise problems with measurable impact, apply modern AI responsibly at scale, and help shape how AI is adopted across the organization with a strong emphasis on governance, reliability, and long-term value. WHAT YOU WILL DO AI Solution & Agent Development Design and implement LLM-powered applications, assistants, and agentic workflows Apply prompt engineering, tool calling, and orchestration patterns Translate business problems into scalable AI-enabled solutions Data & RAG Architecture Design data pipelines for ingestion, embeddings, and retrieval Implement Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) solutions Optimize relevance, context management, and response quality Workflow Automation & Integration Build AI-driven workflows with conditional logic and human-in-the-loop controls Integrate with enterprise data platforms, APIs, and internal systems Production Engineering & Deployment Deploy AI models and applications using modern engineering practices Ensure scalability, reliability, monitoring, and cost efficiency Support CI/CD pipelines and cloud-native deployments Security, Governance & Responsible AI Implement access controls, data protection, and PII handling Support AI governance, auditability, and compliance requirements Contribute to explainability, bias mitigation, and responsible AI practices WHAT YOU WILL NEED TO SUCCEED Education Qualifications Bachelor's degree in Math, Statistics, Economics, Computer Science, physics, engineering, or other qualitative discipline required Graduate Degree preferred Experience Qualifications 10+ years of experience hands-on experience applying descriptive statistics, machine learning, predictive modeling, and visualization techniques to solve challenging business problems required Expert knowledge in: Statistical and machine learning techniques, Data Science libraries in a programming or scripting language, model deployment, machine learning workflows required Strong proficiency in Python and DevOps and source control management tools required Experience deploying AI or ML solutions in production environments Strong understanding of LLM-based applications and agentic systems Experience with RAG architectures and semantic search Familiarity with MLOps, monitoring, and CI/CD practices Experience working in enterprise or regulated environments Key Skills Applied machine learning and AI LLM application development and prompt engineering Agentic workflows and orchestration Python and modern software engineering Data pipelines and enterprise data integration WHAT SUCCESS LOOKS LIKE Production AI solutions that are secure, reliable, and trusted by the business Measurable improvements in automation, efficiency, or decision quality Reusable AI components leveraged across teams Strong engineering quality, documentation, and collaboration Organizational Relationship Reports to: Sr Manager Data Analytics Title(s) of direct reports (if applicable): N/A Where You Will Work To optimize collaboration, relationship building, and key stakeholder engagement, this role aligns to a 4:1 hybrid model which is in office Monday-Thursday with the option for remote work on Fridays. YOUR COMPANY BENEFITS At Crown Castle, we do our best to ensure you have access to the resources you need to live a healthy and happy life no matter where you are in life. Our benefits are built around your individual needs, covering physical, mental, and financial health and designed to enhance your quality of life. We are proud to offer a full suite of health and wealth benefits for you and your loved ones. Below are a few of the key highlights of the many benefits we provide. Comprehensive healthcare plans with highly company subsidized premiums and up to $2,000 annual company contribution to your Health Savings Account (HSA base plan for employee and dependents). Market-leading 401(k) plan, which includes up to 10% company contributions through our 5% match and 5% profit sharing program (based on employee contributions). New-child leave up to 8 weeks of 100% paid leave upon birth or legal adoption of a new child. Birth mothers are eligible for up to 8 weeks of additional 100% paid medical leave. Tuition reimbursement up to $5,250 per year of eligible tuition and fees. Crown Castle scholarship program awarding up to $10,000 per recipient each year for eligible dependent children of employees and interns. Matching charitable contributions to qualified charitable organizations of up to $1,000 per year per teammate. Generous paid time-off for eligible full-time employees (minimum 18 days per year based on years of service). 10 company holidays plus 2 floating holiday. All offices provide free beverages and snacks. Compensation The salary range offered for this position is $155000 - $213100 annually. A candidate's offer is determined by various factors including but not limited to, depth of experience, role-related knowledge and skills, relevant education or training, internal alignment, and work location. Depending on the position offered, the compensation package may also include incentive compensation opportunities in the form of a discretionary annual cash bonus or commissions, and equity incentives. Additional Information Pursuant to the Los Angeles County and San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, we will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records. It is unlawful in Massachusetts to require or administer a lie detector test as a condition of employment or continued employment. An employer who violates this law shall be subject to criminal penalties and civil liability. If you are interested in joining our team, please visit the Crown Castle careers site to apply. We do not accept resumes from agencies, headhunters, or other third-party suppliers who have not signed a formal agreement with us. This position will remain posted until filled.