Data Scientist II - Trips - Cars

About the Cars Business Unit

From our hubs in Manchester, London & Amsterdam, our Trips Business Unit helps people get where they want to go anywhere in the world. Whether customers want the freedom of a car, the convenience of a flight, the ease of a taxi, the economy of public transport or an endless variety of exciting activities, we make it all possible. Our team is passionate about helping people travel. They see challenges as opportunities. And they’re always ready for change.

Our Cars business is one of the cornerstones of the connected trip. We seek to offer our customers the best and most convenient car rental product with reassuring insurance products available where needed. We cater for both customers that start their trip by buying a car and those that are complementing their existing journey. We do this by keeping the customer front of mind in all decisions, tailoring our inventory & pricing options to ensure you’re able to book the best product for your needs at the best price possible.

Role Overview:

As a Data Scientist II, you will be working within the Cars Data Science & Analytics team and you will be involved in various stages of data science solutions, from ideation to implementation. You will be working independently on data consumption and preparation, effectively solving business problems through statistical data analysis and modeling. This role involves interpreting experimental data to guide business decisions, uncovering new opportunities, and engaging with stakeholders. As a Data Scientist II, you are expected to continuously learn, expand your technical competencies, engage with peers, and understand the larger data ecosystem and the goals for Cars. You are also responsible for ensuring the quality of your work through peer review.

The successful candidate will collaborate with our commercial team, helping steer decision making through relevant and actionable data insights & innovative new ways of looking at our business. You will be closely collaborating with other data scientists, analysts & machine learning scientists to develop strategic insights, uncover growth opportunities, and identify key drivers of booking trends. In particular, this candidate will assume ownership of several key aspects of the cars business model, including our ranking & promotions models.

Role description:

1. The role will primarily involve supporting the Cars commercial team through innovative ranking & promotional insights & recommendations.
2. Partnering with commercial, data engineering and product teams to develop new methods for understanding how our promotional activities (such as Genius) impact our Cars business.
3. Understand the vision and strategy of ranking optimisation activities and develop and own data science roadmaps in order to execute.
4. Develop knowledge and awareness of Cars economics in order to drive and influence the product roadmap across both ranking & promotions.
5. Look outside of the immediate Cars scope to consider both the Ground Transport and wider Connected Trip perspectives, determining & optimising for long term metrics.
6. You will work closely with the product & engineering, data management & data engineering teams to support our product vision. Strong skills in stakeholder management and business acumen will ensure your work is impactful and can influence the business decisions of your stakeholders.

Key Job Responsibilities and Duties

1. Responsible for providing data science support to our product stakeholders, to enable them to make data-driven decisions.
2. Responsible for designing and interpreting quantitative experiments to objectively guide key business decision making.
3. Responsible for designing & delivering entire data science solutions working closely with product and research teams.
4. Continuously review product engagement and performance, generate insights and provide hypotheses for newer experimentation to drive product growth.
5. Implement learnings in replicating product success to other areas within Intent Discovery and Platform.

Role Qualifications and Requirements

1. 3+ years of experience working in Data Science roles; advanced degree preferred (Statistics, Econometrics, Applied Mathematics, or similar) (mandatory).
2. Strong background in ranking / economics.
3. Strong working knowledge of statistics (mandatory):
   • Descriptive Statistics
     • Standard Deviation, Skewness etc.
   • Inferential Statistics
     • Hypothesis testing
     • Confidence intervals, p-values, Correlation vs Causation
     • Type I and Type II errors
4. Strong working knowledge of Experimentation (mandatory):
   • A/B testing
   • Power analysis & sample size determination
   • Familiarity with biases in experimentation.
5. Strong working knowledge of SQL and at least one scripting language (Python or R) (mandatory).
6. Analytical, strategic, humble, entrepreneurial, and data-driven (mandatory).
7. Comfortable interacting with stakeholders throughout the global organization (mandatory).
8. Strong communication and presentation skills (mandatory).
9. Very strong commercial acumen (mandatory).
10. Flexibility to accommodate change and thrive in ambiguity (mandatory).
11. Familiarity with optimisation techniques.

Benefits & Perks – Global Impact, Personal Relevance:

Booking.com’s Total Rewards Philosophy is not only about compensation but also about benefits. We offer a competitive compensation and benefits package, as well unique-to-Booking.com benefits which include:

1. Annual paid time off and generous paid leave scheme including: parent, grandparent, bereavement, and care leave.
2. Hybrid working including flexible working arrangements, and up to 20 days per year working from abroad (home country).
3. Industry leading product discounts – up to 1400 per year – for yourself, including automatic Genius Level 3 status and Booking.com wallet credit.

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) at Booking.com:

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion have been a core part of our company culture since day one. This ongoing journey starts with our very own employees, who represent over 140 nationalities and a wide range of ethnic and social backgrounds, genders and sexual orientations.

Take it from our Chief People Officer, Paulo Pisano: “At Booking.com, the diversity of our people doesn’t just build an outstanding workplace, it also creates a better and more inclusive travel experience for everyone. Inclusion is at the heart of everything we do. It’s a place where you can make your mark and have a real impact in travel and tech.”

We ensure that colleagues with disabilities are provided the adjustments and tools they need to participate in the job application and interview process, to perform crucial job functions, and to receive other benefits and privileges of employment.

Application Process:

1. Let’s go places together: How we Hire
2. Your recruiter will be in touch to discuss the hiring process with you and interview stages to expect.
3. This role does not come with relocation assistance.

Booking.com is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace and is an affirmative action employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, disability, age, or veteran status. We strive to move well beyond traditional equal opportunity and work to create an environment that allows everyone to thrive.

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