Senior Data Scientist - Operational Research

Relay is fundamentally reshaping how goods move in an online era. Relay's Mission is to free commerce from friction. The Operational Research team are responsible for the intelligent systems that optimise the most complex decisions across our network. As the first Operational Research Scientist in Last Mile Marketplace, you will design, build and evolve the optimisation models and solvers that sit at the heart of Relay's last-mile network. This is a senior individual contributor role, working alongside Data Scientists, Analysts, and Engineers in a squad focussed on developing the tech defining our last mile marketplace.

Responsibilities

Translate operational requirements into optimisation models across scheduling, assignment and pricing problems; Develop and evaluate solution approaches — drawing on knowledge of mathematical programming and meta-heuristics; Design and build algorithms, heuristics and solvers bespoke for the unique problems you formulate; Ensure your solutions are scalable and adaptable to our growing operation; Benchmark and evaluate the performance of your solutions; Work closely with engineering to productionise your solutions into automated daily processes; Work with analytics to monitor the daily performance of your solution, using this information to proactively evolve your solution to make better decisions

Requirements

Relevant operational research experience in heuristics and/or mathematical programming; Comfortable coding in a general purpose or performance language, such as Python, Rust, Julia or C++; Enjoy the challenge of solving large-scale optimisation problems; Motivated to work on production systems, learning from the realised outcome of your optimisation model every day, and proactively evolving your solution; Love understanding problems deeply, crafting bespoke solutions to unique dynamics of the decision being made; Excited to work in a cross-functional tech team designing and building Relay's Last Mile Marketplace; Care about the people your work affects — couriers, retailers, and consumers; Want to be close to the problems you are optimising, and decisions your solutions will make, getting hands-on in the network to see the outcome of your work first hand; Strong technical fundamentals with entrepreneurial drive

Nice to have

Aim with Precision; Play to Win; 1% Better Every Day; All In, All the Time; People-Powered Greatness; Grow the Whole Pie

Benefits

Generous equity, richer than 99% of European startups, with annual top-ups to share Relay’s success; Private health & dental coverage, so comprehensive you’d need to be a partner at a Magic Circle law firm to match it; 25 days of holidays; Enhanced parental leave; Hardware of your choice; Extensive perks (gym subsidies, cycle-to-work, Friday office lunch, covered Uber home and dinner for late nights, and more)