Senior Data Scientist

Why loveholidays?

At loveholidays - we trailblaze together . We’re on a mission to open the world to everyone, giving our customers’ unlimited choice, unmatched ease and unmissable value for their next getaway. Our team is the driving force behind our role as our customers’ personal holiday expert - the smart way to get away.

Technology at loveholidays underpins our vision to become the most loved OTA in Europe. We drive cutting-edge innovation and technical excellence to futureproof the business. Our systems process trillions of daily holiday offers, we deploy over a thousand times a month, serving thousands of requests per second. This is where you can accelerate your growth by solving complex challenges and broadening your skillset.

Join us to create impact for our future in a new growth phase, owning your success and contributing to shared goals. We actively talk about technology and adhere to our key technology principles that have guided us this far. We are growing and have ambitious plans to expand across Europe , employing the best minds and technology to let us do this.

About the team:

Our Data Science team comprises seven members, including two Senior Data Scientists, four Data Scientists, and the Head of Data Science. We specialise in various areas such as Recommender Systems, Time Series Forecasting, Deep Learning, and Reinforcement Learning, fostering a collaborative learning environment.

Our focus is on modelling and problem-solving, leveraging advanced machine learning techniques to create solutions to challenging business problems. We prioritise clean, well-tested code with a culture of documentation and knowledge sharing. Our tech stack includes GCP, Python, GitHub, PyTorch, TensorFlow, Scikit-learn, and XGBoost.

With mature infrastructure and dedicated teams for Data Engineering, Analytics, and Platform Engineering, our Data Scientists enjoy high autonomy. We tackle interesting datasets, set up large-scale experiments, and implement growth strategies with NO red tape. Quarterly OKR planning ensures that priorities are clearly defined and teams are aligned on objectives.

The impact you’ll have:

Reporting to the Head of Data Science, the Senior Data Scientist will play a pivotal role in propelling loveholidays forward. Positioned within a team of passionate data enthusiasts, you'll be instrumental in shaping our data-driven strategies and outcomes.

Your day-to-day:

• Researching and developing new models and techniques to tackle key business challenges
• Overseeing the production and maintenance of systems
• Conducting code reviews and collaborating on various projects across teams
• Providing mentorship and coaching, facilitating career growth within the team
• Engaging in project rotation for a fresh perspective and sustained engagement
• Proposing new initiatives and collaborating in team OKR crafting
• Participating in morning stand-ups and weekly prioritisation meetings

Your skillset:

We're on the hunt for a driven individual who employs a scientific approach to data, where the following qualities are paramount:

• Excellent problem-solving skills: Tackle a wide array of challenges through independent work and collaboration
• Innovation and curiosity: Work across the business to understand challenges and develop practical solutions
• Self-starter: Identify issues and opportunities independently, constantly seeking to learn and innovate
• Team player: Collaborate effectively, accept feedback, and provide mentorship
• Communication skills: Influence stakeholders and articulate data science concepts to non-technical audiences

Required Experience

• Leading E2E projects, from inception, planning/prioritisation to delivery including monitoring and alerting
• Designing experiments and modelling to generate actionable insights and enhance business performance
• Proficient in machine learning and statistical methods for predictive modelling and forecasting
• Experience deploying ML models to production at scale
• Solid understanding of SQL
• Proficiency in unit testing, CI/CD, model management and experiment tracking

Desirable

• Experience with Deep Learning, Generative AI and Reinforcement Learning
• Experience with Time Series Forecasting and Recommender Systems
• Previous experience working in e-commerce, retail, or the travel industry.
• Conducted and analysed large scale A/B experiments
• Experience mentoring team members
• Experience with workflow orchestration technologies such as Airflow, Dagster or Prefect
• Experience with technologies such as:
  • Google Cloud Platform, particularly Vertex AI
  • Docker and Kubernetes

Perks of joining us:

• Company pension contributions at 5%
• Individualised training budget for you to learn on the job and level yourself up
• Discounted holidays for you, your family and friends
• 25 days of holidays per annum (plus 8 public holidays) increases by 1 day for every second year of service, up to a maximum 30 days per annum
• Ability to buy and sell annual leave
• Cycle to work scheme, season ticket loan and eye care vouchers

At loveholidays, we focus on developing an inclusive culture and environment that encourages personal growth and collective success. Each individual offers unique perspectives and ideas that increase the diversity and effectiveness of our teams. And we value the insight and potential you could bring on our continued journey.

• TA screening - 30 mins
• 1st stage with Hiring Manager - 45 mins
• Take-home exercise presentation - 1 hour
• Final stage with key stakeholder/s including a task to present, in office - 1 hour