Staff Data Scientist

Staff Data Scientist | Build the Future of AI in Travel

Do you want to define the technical direction of machine learning across an entire business?

As a Staff Data Scientist, you’ll be the most senior individual contributor within a high-performing data science team, tackling the company’s hardest machine learning challenges whilst raising the technical bar for everyone around you.

You’ll remain hands‑on, building production-grade models that power products used by millions, whilst influencing strategy, mentoring peers, and shaping the future of AI across the organisation.

What You’ll Do:

Lead Mission-Critical ML – Own the design, development and deployment of high‑impact machine learning models that solve complex business problems across ranking, recommendations, forecasting, pricing, churn and beyond.

Set the Technical Standard – Define best practices for modelling, experimentation, MLOps and code quality, helping establish the technical direction for the entire Data Science function.

Multiply Team Impact – Mentor experienced data scientists, review models and technical designs, and help elevate the quality and effectiveness of everything the team delivers.

Shape Product Strategy – Partner closely with engineering, product and leadership to identify where machine learning can unlock the greatest commercial value and influence long‑term roadmap decisions.

Champion AI – Continuously explore and adopt the latest AI tools and techniques, embedding them into both machine learning solutions and day‑to‑day data science workflows.

Stay Hands‑On – Build scalable, production‑ready machine learning systems from concept through deployment, monitoring and continuous improvement.

The Team

You’ll join an experienced Data Science team within a wider Business Intelligence organisation, working alongside Data Scientists, Analysts and Data Engineers. This is a newly created Staff‑level position, giving you the opportunity to shape both the technical direction and the culture of the team.

You’ll enjoy significant autonomy, fast paths from idea to production, and the chance to influence products used by millions of travellers across Europe.

What They’re Looking For:

• Significant commercial experience building and deploying machine learning models in production (typically 5+ years)

• Deep expertise in statistics, predictive modelling and applied machine learning

• Strong hands‑on experience with Python, SQL and modern ML tooling

• Experience building high‑performance models using tree‑based and gradient boosting techniques (XGBoost, LightGBM, CatBoost)

• Demonstrated technical leadership through mentoring, setting standards or leading complex ML initiatives

• Excellent communication skills with the ability to influence both technical and non‑technical stakeholders

• Ownership mentality with a track record of solving ambiguous, high‑impact problems

• Genuine enthusiasm for leveraging AI to improve products, workflows and engineering practices

What They Offer:

• Hybrid working with approximately 50% office collaboration

• Up to 8 weeks per year working from international locations

• Personal learning budget plus dedicated learning days

• Bonus, pension, private healthcare and additional employee benefits

• Significant discounts on properties across their own platform