Innovation Leader

Company Description
You see things a little differently. So do we! At IKEA, we believe that what you value is more important than what your CV says. We offer positions that will challenge your skills and let you grow. Come see things a little differently with us!
IKEA is on a constant journey to create a better everyday life for the many people by continuously reinvent ourselves as we continue to grow and develop to meet and exceed our customers’ needs. We will transform our digital capabilities, bringing core business processes, people, data & technology together - an enabler for IKEA to become an even better home furnishing company in the future. A journey that needs passionate people who embrace change, dare to question and want to make a difference. If that sounds like you, come and join us!
Job Description
You will be the technology lead for the AI innovation lab. The key responsibilities will be:
Team Leadership:
Hold together projects with teams from across the organization as technical project lead.
Lead, mentor, and manage a team of data scientists, analysts, and researchers.
Ensure consistency by supporting the use of relevant development techniques, digital frameworks, and best practices.
Commitment to IKEA key values: Togetherness, Renew and Improve, Cost-Consciousness
Collaborate with data scientists, data engineers, architects, analysts, peers, and other relevant roles across IKEA as well as in your team.

AI Lab operations:
Lead the technical advance of the AI lab.
Lead the implementation of innovation prototype projects as technical lead for AI.
Design, develop, and deploy AI-driven solutions (prototype/pilot stage) that address complex business challenges.
Ensure that the insights and conclusions from AI innovation projects are repeatable, reusable and that learnings are captured.
Collaborate with cross-functional teams to integrate AI components into IKEA eco-system.
Work with business and IT stakeholders to assess their needs, both functional and nonfunctional / architectural to design and implement AI solutions on innovative new AI technologies.
Collaborate closely with the AI lab lead, the data science leads of the IKEA entities and the innovation leaders.

AI Innovation technology domain:
Develop the AI research roadmap for the lab.
Collaborate with senior leadership to define the data strategy and analytics roadmap for the organization.
Be up to date on developments in the AI space, eager to test new technologies and to assess their possible use for IKEA.
Have a deep architectural understanding of AI to be able to shape a roadmap based on business needs and future developments with technology selection, deployment options.



In this role you will initially report to the Digital manager in the Data & Technology organization in IKEA Supply.
Are you looking for the challenge of your life? You can find more information about our digital journey at Technology and Digital Career Hub at IKEA
Qualifications
We are building a lab for prototyping the next generations of Artificial Intelligence for IKEA. We are looking for a person with passion to push the boundaries with new technologies and lead AI as innovation technology domain in the lab.
We believe you have multiple years of experience in AI and surrounding technology domain as well as working together with business and IT teams and planning and running projects and programs.
Your key capabilities are:
Technical leadership in AI.
In-depth understanding of AI, machine learning, deep learning, relevant programming languages, frameworks, and related technologies.
Architectural understanding of AI frameworks and AI deployments in the major cloud providers (focus: Azure).
Proficiency in data analysis, machine learning, data preprocessing, feature engineering, and model evaluation, etc.
Experience in IT architecture basics, deployment patterns for AI, edge computing.
Business and solution architecture acumen, to be able to translate business requirements into a solid AI roadmap.
Strong problem-solving and critical-thinking abilities.
Effective communication and presentation skills.
Project management and organizational skills.
Programming skills in languages such as Python and others.
Proficiency with an appropriate set of languages, technologies, and cloud environments, data modelling techniques and concepts as well as distributed technologies and graph databases.
Experience from modern development techniques such as Agile and DevOps.



You should be eager to take initiatives and driven to achieve results with people spread virtually across Europe, delivering innovation based on AI, which will matter for IKEA in the future. You should bring a growth mind-set: very curious to explore, fascinated by AI and its development, eager to learn and finding better ways, as well as energized by sharing.
You are driven by the idea of solving business problems and creating the right technology selection, project, etc. to solve it. You are inspired by possibilities and opportunities digital and information technology bring to enable, transform, and break new ground while committed to the users and customers with energy to champion their needs.
Additional information
Questions & Support? Let’s connect.
If you have any questions about the role, please reach out to Sebastian Welter, Innovation Leader in IKEA Supply Data & Technology, sebastian.welter@inter.ikea.com
This position is located in one of our IKEA Supply locations in Älmhult /Malmö, Sweden or Warsaw, Poland or Pratteln, Switzerland or Dortmund, Germany.
We look forward to receiving your application in English at the latest September 24th 2023. Together with your application pls share your answer on the 2 following questions:
What are the top trends you see in AI, where you would start to focus on?
How would you have a chatbot build today? What approach / technology / architecture would you choose and why? What would be your top 3 questions for business?

You might have some questions about the recruitment process, and we are more than happy to answer those! Feel free to connect with the People & Culture Leader Dan Gustafsson at dan.gustafsson@inter.ikea.com
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