Lead Data Scientist - (Singapore Based)

Agoda Company Pte. Ltd.; Singapore; On-site; SGD 180,000 - 260,000; Full time

Job summary

Agoda Company Pte. Ltd. in Singapore is seeking a Lead/Principal Data Scientist to own the AI Assistant's core intelligence, including intent understanding, multi-step trip planning, memory, and tool calls.

You will shape evaluation backbones with offline tests, LLM judgments, and A/B experiments, ensuring changes deliver measurable traveler value. The role targets senior DS/ML practitioners who can operate end-to-end across ML, product, and engineering, setting technical direction and mentoring

Qualifications

• Strong DS fundamentals, statistics, experimentation, and causal inference.
• Hands-on experience building LLM systems with RAG and tool use.
• Problem-solving mindset with comfort in open-ended problems.
• Deep DS/ML depth and product judgment are valued.

Responsibilities

• Own the assistant's core intelligence: intent understanding, multi-step trip planning, memory, and tool calls.
• Build the evaluation backbone: offline evaluations, LLM-as-judge, A/B tests.
• Balance quality, latency, cost, and reliability with cross-functional teams.
• Ship ideas to production quickly and learn from usage.
• Raise the bar by setting technical direction and mentoring data scientists.

Skills

DS fundamentals

LLM systems

Problem solving

Analytical thinking

Education

Advanced degree in CS/Statistics/OR/Math

Tools

RAG

Tool use

Agent orchestration

Job description

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.

Planning a trip can feel like a second job. Agodaʼs AI Assistant turns a loose travel idea into a personalized, actionable trip plan across hotels, flights, and activities. Weʼre hiring Lead/Principal Data Scientists to own how it understands, plans, recommends, and improves.

Get To Know Our Team

Youʼll join the team building Agodaʼs AI Assistant: The assistant runs on Agodaʼs liveinventory of 6M+ properties, 130K+ flight routes and 300K+ activities, so your work candirectly shape the options and decisions travelers see in live booking journeys. Weʼre earlyenough that the big design decisions are still open, and youʼll make many of them.The role suits senior data scientists and ML practitioners who want end-to-end responsibilityfor complex systems, where ML, product and engineering meet

What Youʼll Do

• Own the assistant's core intelligence: intent understanding, multi-step trip planning,
  memory, and tool calls into Agoda's search.
• Build the evaluation backbone: offline evaluations, LLM-as-judge calibrated against
  human labels, and A/B tests, so we know a change is better before travelers see it.
• Make the hard trade-offs with data: use data to make hard trade-offs among quality,
  latency, cost, and reliability, in partnership with product, engineering, and leadership.
• Ship, learn, repeat: get ideas into production fast and let usage tell you what to fix next.
• Raise the bar: set technical direction and DS practices for building and evaluating agents,
  and mentor other data scientists

What Weʼre Looking For

• Strong DS fundamentals: Modeling, statistics, experimentation and causal inference.
• Hands-on experience building LLM systems: RAG, tool use, agent orchestration, context
  and memory, with an evaluation-first approach.
• Problem-solving mindset: Excellent analytical and problem-solving skills, with comfort
  operating in open-ended problem spaces where requirements evolve.
• Deep LLM experience is valuable: but exceptional DS/ML depth, strong product judgment,
  and the ability to ramp quickly are equally important.

Why This Role

• Meaningful user impact: Help millions of travelers make better, more confident decisions
  for trips that matter to them.
• High ownership, high impact: Your work will shape a customer-facing system operating in
  real travel and booking journeys.
• Direct influence: Play a key role in both implementation and product direction.

Nice to 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.

If you’re excited about building real-world AI products at scale and owning systems that directly impact millions of travelers, we’d love to hear from you!

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.

Planning a trip can feel like a second job. Agodaʼs AI Assistant turns a loose travel idea into a personalized, actionable trip plan across hotels, flights, and activities. Weʼre hiring Lead/Principal Data Scientists to own how it understands, plans, recommends, and improves.

Get To Know Our Team

Youʼll join the team building Agodaʼs AI Assistant: The assistant runs on Agodaʼs liveinventory of 6M+ properties, 130K+ flight routes and 300K+ activities, so your work candirectly shape the options and decisions travelers see in live booking journeys. Weʼre earlyenough that the big design decisions are still open, and youʼll make many of them.The role suits senior data scientists and ML practitioners who want end-to-end responsibilityfor complex systems, where ML, product and engineering meet

What Youʼll Do

• Own the assistant's core intelligence: intent understanding, multi-step trip planning,
  memory, and tool calls into Agoda's search.
• Build the evaluation backbone: offline evaluations, LLM-as-judge calibrated against
  human labels, and A/B tests, so we know a change is better before travelers see it.
• Make the hard trade-offs with data: use data to make hard trade-offs among quality,
  latency, cost, and reliability, in partnership with product, engineering, and leadership.
• Ship, learn, repeat: get ideas into production fast and let usage tell you what to fix next.
• Raise the bar: set technical direction and DS practices for building and evaluating agents,
  and mentor other data scientists

What Weʼre Looking For

• Strong DS fundamentals: Modeling, statistics, experimentation and causal inference.
• Hands-on experience building LLM systems: RAG, tool use, agent orchestration, context
  and memory, with an evaluation-first approach.
• Problem-solving mindset: Excellent analytical and problem-solving skills, with comfort
  operating in open-ended problem spaces where requirements evolve.
• Deep LLM experience is valuable: but exceptional DS/ML depth, strong product judgment,
  and the ability to ramp quickly are equally important.

Why This Role

• Meaningful user impact: Help millions of travelers make better, more confident decisions
  for trips that matter to them.
• High ownership, high impact: Your work will shape a customer-facing system operating in
  real travel and booking journeys.
• Direct influence: Play a key role in both implementation and product direction.

Nice to 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.

If you’re excited about building real-world AI products at scale and owning systems that directly impact millions of travelers, we’d love to hear from you!

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.

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