Applied Scientist

TomTom; Madrid; Hybrid; EUR 85,000 - 125,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Personal development budget

Paid learning resources (O’Reilly, LIn

Enhanced parental leave

Flexible work: office + home

Home office setup budget

Work abroad days

Generous holiday plan

Annual Hackathon & DevDays

Job summary

TomTom is seeking an ML-focused researcher for its Navigation SDK team. You will design how LLMs access geospatial data, develop embeddings and knowledge graphs, and build benchmarks for factuality.

You will collaborate with product managers, write production-grade code, publish findings where relevant, and help push state-of-the-art in location-aware AI. This hybrid role offers learning budgets and international collaboration.

Qualifications

• Strong foundations in machine learning, deep learning, statistics and optimization.
• Experience with PyTorch or JAX and Python data stack.
• Experience with LLMs, generative AI, CV, time-series, graphs or RL.
• Ability to design experiments, define metrics and derive conclusions.
• Experience with large-scale datasets and distributed computing (Spark/Databricks/Azure/AWS/GCP).
• Ability to write clean, maintainable production code and collaborate with engineers.
• Excellent communication skills; ability to explain complex ideas to diverse audiences.
• Publications at top venues is a plus, geospatial/mobility data is a plus.

Responsibilities

• Research and design how LLMs access and reason over TomTom data.
• Develop embeddings and knowledge graphs for geospatial entities.
• Define benchmarks and metrics for factuality and accuracy.
• Design and train ML models across domains (LLMs, CV, time-series, graphs).
• Collaborate with product managers to frame problems with measurable success.
• Write production-quality code with AI and software engineers.
• Keep up with state-of-the-art LLMs and adapt techniques.
• Share findings with technical and non-technical audiences; contribute to publications.

Skills

ML fundamentals

PyTorch/JAX

Python stack

LLMs & GenAI

Distributed computing

Experiment design

Geospatial data

Code quality

Publications

System design

Education

Bachelor/Master/PhD in a quantitative field

Tools

PyTorch

JAX

Spark

Databricks

Azure

AWS

GCP

NumPy

Pandas

Scikit-learn

Job description

TomTom is a global leader in navigation, mapping, and traffic information. Join our dynamic team and vibrant culture to contribute to shaping the future of location technology.

What You'll Do

• LLM-data interfaces Research and design how LLMs access and reason over TomTom's data. This covers retrieval strategies for structured and geospatial data, tool and API designs that LLMs can use reliably, text-to-query approaches, and grounding techniques.
• Data representation Develop representations that make location data usable by AI, such as embeddings for geospatial entities, knowledge graphs and structured context formats.
• Evaluation science Define how we measure whether LLM-powered systems are right. Build benchmarks, factuality and hallucination metrics, and evaluation datasets for location-grounded tasks, and work with engineers to automate them.
• Model research and development Design, train and fine-tune ML and deep learning models, including LLMs, computer vision, time-series and graph-based methods, using large-scale, multi-modal data.
• Problem framing Work with product managers and stakeholders to identify high-impact opportunities and turn them into well-defined scientific problems with clear success metrics.
• Research to production Write production-quality code and work with AI and software engineers to take solutions from prototype to production, balancing accuracy, latency, cost and scalability.
• State of the art Keep up with the latest research in LLMs, retrieval and agentic systems, and adapt promising techniques to TomTom's problems.
• Knowledge sharing Communicate findings clearly to technical and non-technical audiences, and help build a strong scientific culture. External publications and patents are encouraged.

What You'll Need

• Bachelor’s, Master's or PhD in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Statistics, Mathematics, Physics or a related quantitative field, or equivalent professional experience.
• Strong foundations in machine learning, deep learning, statistics and optimization.
• Hands-on experience with modern deep learning frameworks such as PyTorch or JAX, and with the Python scientific stack (NumPy, pandas, scikit-learn).
• Experience with one or more of LLMs and generative AI, computer vision, time-series forecasting, graph neural networks, or reinforcement learning.
• Proven ability to design experiments, define meaningful metrics and draw sound conclusions from data.
• Experience working with large-scale datasets and distributed computing (e.g., Spark, Databricks, or cloud ML platforms on Azure, AWS or GCP).
• Ability to write clean, maintainable code and to work with engineers toward production deployment.
• Excellent communication skills, with the ability to explain complex technical ideas to diverse audiences.
• A track record of publications at top-tier venues (e.g., NeurIPS, ICML, CVPR, KDD) is a plus.
• Experience with geospatial, mapping, mobility or sensor data is a plus, but not required.

What We Offer

A competitive compensation package, of course.

Time and resources to grow and develop, including a personal development budget and paid leave for learning days, as well as paid access to e-learning resources such as O'Reilly and LinkedIn Learning.

Time to support life outside of work, with enhanced parental leave plus paid leave to care for loved ones and volunteer in local communities.

Work flexibility, where TomTomers, in agreement with their manager and team, use both the office and home to focus, collaborate, learn and socialize. It's all about getting the best out of both worlds - we ask TomTomers to come to the office two days a week, and the remaining three are free to be worked in either location.

Improve your home office with a setup budget and get extra support with a monthly allowance.

Enjoy options to work from your home country and abroad for a set number of days each year, to visit family and friends, or to simply explore the world we're mapping.

Take the holidays you want with a competitive holiday plan, plus an extra day off to celebrate your birthday.

Join annual events like our Hackathon and DevDays to bring your ideas to life with talented teammates from around the world.

Become a part of our inclusive global culture and have the chance to collaborate with a diverse community – we have over 80 nationalities at TomTom!

Find out more about our global benefits and enjoy additional local benefits tailored to your location.

Meet your team

We're the Navigation SDK team. We work on complex code to develop TomTom's Navigation Software Development Kit, integrating technologies provided by other Product Units and enabling our customers to easily build competitive navigation applications. Your code will also be at the heart of TomTom's navigation products like AmiGO, helping millions of people find their way in the world.

At TomTom...

You’ll help people find their way in the world. In 2004, TomTom revolutionized how the world moves with the introduction of the first portable navigation device. Now, we intend to do it again by engineering the first-ever real-time map, the smartest and most useful map on the planet.

Work with a team of 3,300+ unique, curious and passionate problem-solvers. Together, we’ll open up a world of possibilities for car manufacturers, enterprises and developers to help people understand and get closer to the world around them.

After you apply

Our recruitment team will work hard to give you a meaningful experience throughout your journey with us, no matter the outcome. Your application will be screened closely and you can rest assured that all follow-up actions will be thorough, from assessments and interviews all the way through onboarding. To find out more about our application process, check out our hiring FAQs .

TomTom is an equal opportunity employer

TomTom is where you can find your place in the world. Every day we welcome, nurture and celebrate differences. Why? Because your uniqueness is what makes you, you. No matter your culture or background, you'll find your impact at TomTom. Research also shows that sometimes women and underrepresented communities can be hesitant to apply for positions unless they believe they meet 100% of the criteria. If you can relate to this, please know that we’d love to hear from you.

We may use artificial intelligence (AI) tools to support parts of the hiring process, such as reviewing applications, analyzing resumes, or assessing responses and identifying potential inconsistencies or verification signals in application materials based on available information. These tools assist our recruitment team but do not replace human judgment. Final hiring decisions are ultimately made by humans. If you would like more information about how your data is processed, please contact us.