Principal Data Analyst - Transportation Strategy & Optimization

Position Summary... What you'll do... Role summary We are looking for someone with a strong operational mindset who can quickly understand complex business processes, identify opportunities for improvement, and lead ambiguous problems from investigation through implementation. You will build strong business relationships, challenge assumptions, use data and AI to shape strategy, and influence operational decisions and change. Success requires exceptional critical thinking, business judgment, technical and analytical leadership, structured problem solving, and influence across teams and senior leadership. Whether your background is in operations, supply chain, process improvement, strategy, or analytics, you must be able to develop and defend data-driven recommendations and turn them into measurable business outcomes. About the team : Our team sits at the intersection of operations, analytics, technology, and transformation. We work on problems where: the question may not be clearly defined, understanding operational processes is essential, the data may not tell the full story, stakeholders may see the problem differently, decisions involve tradeoffs across cost, service, and execution, and solutions require changing how work gets done. Team members investigate how operations work, develop hypotheses, evaluate alternatives, and lead partners from analysis through implementation and measurement. You will also shape analytical strategy, connect work across teams, establish scalable approaches, and elevate how other analysts solve problems. What you'll do : Lead ambiguous, cross-functional operational problems, identifying root causes, challenging assumptions, and reframing questions to drive business outcomes. Partner with operations, product, technology, data science, and senior leadership to identify opportunities, shape priorities, and influence decisions. Apply advanced analytics, automation, AI, and operational knowledge to test hypotheses, evaluate tradeoffs, and develop actionable recommendations. Influence stakeholders, navigate resistance, and help drive implementation and measurable operational improvements. Design scalable analytical solutions and decision frameworks using SQL, Python, visualization platforms, cloud data environments, and AI. Serve as a thought leader, mentor others, and strengthen analytical capabilities across teams. What you'll bring : Demonstrated critical thinking, business and analytical judgment, strategic ownership, stakeholder leadership, technical and AI fluency, and cross-functional impact. You: understand operational processes and can identify opportunities others may overlook thrive in ambiguity, challenge assumptions, and determine the right problems to solve connect analysis to operational, financial, customer, and organizational outcomes have strong analytical and technical capabilities, using data and AI responsibly to develop and validate recommendations independently shape priorities and lead initiatives across organizational boundaries communicate clearly, influence senior leaders, and drive adoption without positional authority We are equally interested in candidates who came to analytics through the business as we are in candidates who started in technical roles and developed deep business ownership and stakeholder leadership. At Walmart, we offer competitive pay as well as performance-based bonus awards and other great benefits for a happier mind, body, and wallet. Health benefits include medical, vision and dental coverage. Financial benefits include 401(k), stock purchase and company-paid life insurance. Paid time off benefits include PTO (including sick leave), parental leave, family care leave, bereavement, jury duty, and voting. Other benefits include short-term and long-term disability, company discounts, Military Leave Pay, adoption and surrogacy expense reimbursement, and more. You will also receive PTO and/or PPTO that can be used for vacation, sick leave, ho…

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