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Agoda

Lead/Principal Data Scientist

Guoco, Singapore; Singapore (Guoco) Singapore
Principal · Information Technology
POSTED 29 SEPTVERIFIED 4H AGO
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Open for
35d
since 29 Sept
Visa
UK
licensed sponsor
Hiring · 30d
308
−1 net · open roles
LLMs

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.

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 live inventory of 6M+ properties, 130K+ flight routes and 300K+ activities, so your work can directly shape the options and decisions travelers see in live booking journeys. Weʼre early enough 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 responsibility for complex systems, where ML, product and engineering meet

What You'll Do

  • Own the assistantʼs core intelligence: intent understanding, multi-step trip planning,

memory, and tool calls into Agodaʼs 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 We're 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 youʼre excited about building real-world AI products at scale and owning systems that directly impact millions of travelers, weʼd love to hear from you!

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
  • Facebook https://www.facebook.com/agodacareers/
  • LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/agoda
  • YouTube https://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.

Source · Agoda · GreenhouseFirst seen 2 NovOriginal ↗Method