Head of Applied Science
Rohlik is the leading Central European e-grocer. More than a million customers shop with us across Rohlik.cz, Knuspr.de, Kifli.hu, Gurkerl.at, and Sezamo.ro, choosing from over 20,000 items delivered within hours in 15-minute windows.
Behind every order is a continuous stream of automated decisions: how much inventory to buy for each warehouse, how many pickers to schedule on Thursday morning, where in the warehouse a product should sit, and which van carries which bags. Our models make these choices every day across five countries. When a forecast is accurate, shelves stay full and waste is minimized. When a plan is right, warehouses run on exact labor needs and orders arrive precisely in the customer’s chosen window. Get it wrong, and it immediately translates into shrink, overtime, tied-up capital, and missed customer deliveries.
Why this role is exciting
Direct operational and business impact: Your team’s models directly drive availability, shrink, fulfillment costs, and working capital across all five markets.
True ownership with zero friction: We operate automated production pipelines with no committee between your team and deployment—a solid backtest is all you need to ship.
Unification of two core capabilities: You will bring Forecasting and Optimization into a single function, building an end-to-end decision-making ecosystem from the ground up.
AI-first environment: Our engineers use AI coding agents (Devin, Claude Code) daily, and we expect you to push the boundaries of modern agentic workflows and tooling.
Direct executive exposure: Reporting directly to the Group CTO, you will have the mandate and space to shape technical strategy and execution.
What you will own and deliver
Business outcomes: Own the business results delivered by the forecasting and optimization portfolio, setting targets with cell leads and tracking financial and operational impact in production.
Strategic roadmap & prioritization: Define which decisions to automate next across purchasing, fulfillment center planning, workforce scheduling, and commercial optimization (promotions, markdowns, demand shaping).
Technical standards & architecture: Set the bar for problem framing, method selection, fast production MVPs, honest evaluation/backtesting against business metrics, and reliability monitoring.
Function unification & leadership: Merge Forecasting and Optimization into one high-performing team; set hiring standards, develop ML engineers and applied scientists, and foster an AI-first way of working.
Cross-functional partnership: Partner closely with cell leads, operations managers, product owners, and engineering leads to align on business metrics, baselines, and seamless system integration.
What we are looking for
Track record of impact: 8+ years applying machine learning, forecasting, or operations research to real operational or commercial problems, with clear metrics demonstrating business results.
Works backwards from outcomes: A proven habit of defining target metrics first, selecting the simplest effective method, shipping fast MVPs, and iterating in production.
Hands-on technical depth: Experience building and shipping production models in time-series/probabilistic forecasting or mathematical optimization (LP, MIP, CP, heuristics, simulation), with enough depth to review models and judge when simple heuristics beat complex models.
Technical skills: Fluency in Python and SQL; hands-on experience with production pipelines, monitoring, and backtesting; familiarity with modern forecasting stacks or solvers (Gurobi, CPLEX, OR-Tools).
Operational fluency: Experience working directly alongside supply chain, warehouse, or logistics operations, including spending time on the floor to understand problems before framing models.
Leadership & communication: Proven experience leading technical teams, hiring top talent, developing engineers, and translating complex model mechanics into business trade-offs for executives.
AI-first mindset: Active use of coding agents and modern AI tooling in your daily workflow, driving the same approach across your team.
Quantitative background: M.S. or Ph.D. in Operations Research, Computer Science, Statistics, Applied Mathematics, or equivalent hands-on experience.
Nice to have:
Experience in e-commerce, grocery, supply chain, or logistics at scale.
Experience building or scaling a forecasting, optimization, or decision-science function from an early stage.
Experience feeding probabilistic forecasts directly into optimization models.
Experience with GCP, Snowflake, or BigQuery, and ML platforms such as ZenML or Vertex AI.
What’s in it for you
Fair reward - You’ll get a strong fixed salary, no bonus games, no politics. Great work is rewarded clearly and fairly.
Good food every day - You’ll enjoy a free lunch every day and fresh fruit & veggies in the office. Because good food fuels great work.
Life, not just work - You’ll have real flexibility three days in the office, 2 days at the Home Office where it suits you. And unlimited paid vacation based on trust.
Personal growth - You’ll grow as fast as Rohlik does. Every challenge is a chance to learn and make an impact.
Real impact - What you do here matters. You’ll see your work changing how people eat and live from day one.
Recognition among colleagues - Your effort won’t go unnoticed. You can recognise others (and be recognised) through peer credits to use in our internal cafeteria.
Xtra membership - You’ll get free Xtra membership and 10% cashback on everything you buy on Rohlik.cz.
Sport & wellbeing - You’ll stay active with company sports challenges or a subsidised Multisport card.
A team that sticks together - You’ll work with people who move fast, support each other and celebrate wins together.
If this sounds like you - You’re someone who takes ownership, acts fast and gets things done. Ready to bake something great with us?
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