Lead Data Scientist

agoda company pte. ltd.; Singapore; On-site; SGD 180,000 - 260,000; Full time

Job summary

Agoda is seeking a Lead/Principal LLM Data Scientist to shape how we measure, evaluate, and improve AI systems across travel journeys at Agoda scale. You will define quality metrics, experiments, and feedback loops to drive product improvements from conversations and signals.

You will lead design and deployment of ML, AI, and analytical solutions, partnering with ML engineers and product teams to set technical direction and mentor a growing data-science community.

Qualifications

• Hands-on experience in data science, ML and statistics.
• Experience delivering production models with measurable impact.
• Strong Python and SQL skills with large-scale data.
• Ability to influence senior stakeholders and communicate clearly.
• Experience with ML platforms.

Responsibilities

• Define quality metrics, evaluation frameworks, and offline/online experiments for LLM and agent behavior.
• Build the data and feedback loops that turn conversation, tool-use, and customer signals into product improvements.
• Investigate failures across quality, reliability, latency, cost, and safety—and turn findings into concrete system changes.
• Partner with ML engineers and product teams to set technical direction for PTA.
• Identify and solve high-leverage problems across Agoda.
• Translate ambiguous problems into measurable objectives and technical solutions.
• Lead the design and deployment of ML, AI, and analytical solutions.
• Own solutions from problem definition and experimentation through production deployment, measurement, and iteration.
• Partner with cross-functional leaders to shape strategy and roadmaps.
• Provide technical leadership and mentorship across the data-science community.

Skills

Data science

Machine learning

Statistics

Python

SQL

Communication

Stakeholder influence

Production ML

Education

Advanced degree

Tools

ML platforms

Job description

About Agoda

At Agoda, we bridge the world through travel. Our story began in 2005, when two lifelong friends and entrepreneurs, driven by their passion for travel, launched Agoda to make it easier for everyone to explore the world.

Today, we are part of Booking Holdings [NASDAQ: BKNG], with a diverse team of over 7,000 people from 90 countries, working together in offices around the globe. Every day, we connect people to destinations and experiences, with our great deals across our millions of hotels and holiday properties, flights, and experiences worldwide.

No two days are the same at Agoda. Data and technology are at the heart of our culture, fueling our curiosity and innovation. If you're ready to begin your best journey and help build travel for the world, join us.

The Opportunity

Join the team building PTA, Agoda's AI-powered travel planning assistant. PTA helps travelers turn broad trip ideas into personalized plans across flights, hotels, activities, and local recommendations.

As a Lead/Principal LLM Data Scientist, you will shape how we measure, evaluate, experiment with, and improve AI systems that operate in real travel journeys at Agoda scale.

What You'll Do

• Define quality metrics, evaluation frameworks, and offline/online experiments for LLM and agent behavior.

• Build the data and feedback loops that turn conversation, tool-use, and customer signals into product improvements.

• Investigate failures across quality, reliability, latency, cost, and safety—and turn findings into concrete system changes.

• Partner with ML engineers and product teams to set technical direction for PTA.

• Identify and solve high-leverage problems across Agoda.

• Translate ambiguous problems into measurable objectives and technical solutions.

• Lead the design and deployment of ML, AI, and analytical solutions.

• Own solutions from problem definition and experimentation through production deployment, measurement, and iteration.

• Partner with cross-functional leaders to shape strategy and roadmaps.

• Provide technical leadership and mentorship across the data-science community.

What You'll Bring

• Extensive hands-on experience in data science, machine learning, and statistics.

• Experience delivering production models with measurable customer or business impact.

• Strong Python and SQL skills; experience with large-scale data and ML platforms.

• Ability to influence senior stakeholders and communicate clearly across technical and non-technical audiences.

It is Great if You Have

• Experience in online travel, e-commerce, search, ranking, recommendations, pricing, or personalization.
• Experience with production LLM or generative-AI systems.
• Advanced degree in Computer Science, Statistics, Operations Research, Mathematics, or a related field.

Please review our Hiring Process Guidelines before your interview - click here to learn how interviewing at Agoda works.

Discover more about working at Agoda

Agoda Careers https://careersatagoda.com

Facebookhttps://www.facebook.com/agodacareers/

LinkedInhttps://www.linkedin.com/company/agoda

YouTubehttps://www.youtube.com/agodalife

Equal Opportunity Employer

At Agoda, we pride ourselves on being a company represented by people of all different backgrounds and orientations. We prioritize attracting diverse talent and cultivating an inclusive environment that encourages collaboration and innovation. Employment at Agoda is based solely on a person's merit and qualifications. We are committed to providing equal employment opportunity regardless of sex, age, race, color, national origin, religion, marital status, pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, citizenship, veteran or military status, and other legally protected characteristics.

We will keep your application on file so that we can consider you for future vacancies and you can always ask to have your details removed from the file. For more details please read our privacy policy.