Principal Data Scientist, KAYAK

KAYAK

Location:
Switzerland, Zurich

Category:
IT - Software Development

Contract Type:
Employment contract

Salary:

Not provided

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Job Description:

KAYAK, part of Booking Holdings, is seeking a resourceful and agile data scientist focused on experimental machine learning and AI projects aimed at enhancing KAYAK's travel search offerings and improving user experiences. The role involves creating innovative solutions across domains like recommender systems, reinforcement learning, vision, and natural language processing. The position is hybrid and located in Zurich.

Job Responsibility:

Design and implement your own solutions to modeling problems to improve user experience and enhance business outcomes
conduct experiments and engage in rapid-prototyping of ideas, making creative use of the data and resources at your disposal
implement designs in a stable, maintainable, and scalable production-ready form
extract, process and leverage large data sets to drive successful projects
engage in group problem-solving, and collaborative team efforts
communicate and share results in a clear and concise manner
collaborate with strong researchers, product managers and engineers, and your work will have tangible impact.

Requirements:

Deep expertise in math, statistics, systems design, and coding sufficient to lead and solve complex industrial machine learning and data science challenges
PhD or equivalent in an aligned quantitative field (computer science, statistics, mathematics, operations research, engineering, etc.) preferred
proven experience applying core concepts and methods in machine/deep learning to real-world data science problems, with a strong track record of measuring and influencing impact at scale
proficient with current Python machine learning development ecosystems: PyTorch or TensorFlow, pandas/polars, scikit-learn, git.

Nice to have:

Solid foundation in software engineering principles, with experience leading or mentoring in individual or team-based technical development
demonstrated success applying ML/AI in a business environment, including shaping high-level business problems into concrete modeling tasks
hands-on experience with data engineering practices, including ETLs, relational databases, and large-scale data frameworks such as Trino
prior experience with ML engineering and/or MLOps, including deploying, maintaining, and monitoring machine learning models in production environments.

What we offer:

Work from (almost) anywhere for up to 20 days per year
company-paid therapy sessions through SpringHealth
company-paid subscription to HeadSpace
company-wide week off a year - the whole team fully recharges (and returns without a pile-up of work)
no meeting Fridays
paid parental leave
generous paid vacation + time off for your birthday
paid volunteer time
development Dollars
leadership development
access to thousands of on-demand e-learnings
travel discounts
employee resource groups
5 weeks paid vacation
social events & Thursday happy hours
free lunch 2 days per week
pension plan contributions
supplemental accident insurance
health insurance subsidy of 250 CHF per month
lunch Check Card of 180 CHF per month
Profawo membership.

Additional Information:

Job Posted:
June 19, 2025

Employment Type:

Fulltime

Work Type:

Hybrid work

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Principal Data Scientist