Staff Data Scientist I - Matching
Careem View all jobs
- Dubai
- Permanent
- Full-time
Since 2012, Careem has enabled earnings for over 2.5 million Captains, simplified the lives of more than 70 million customers, and built a platform where the region's best talent and entrepreneurs thrive. We operate in 70+ cities across 10 countries, from Morocco to Pakistan.We're now entering our next chapter - one powered by AI. We're looking for AI talent: curious problem-solvers who know how to apply AI to build tools, automate workflows, and create real impact. Whether it's streamlining operations, enhancing customer experience, or reimagining internal systems - we want people who can make Careem work smarter and move faster.About the RoleAs a Staff Data Scientist I - Matching, you will own the end-to-end matching and dispatch architecture for Careem's Food and Groceries verticals. You will design and implement real-time assignment systems that optimize cost, SLA compliance, and marketplace efficiency at scale.This role sits at the core of the marketplace engine solving complex, multi-objective optimization problems under uncertainty. You will build systems that dynamically match orders to captains, optimize batching and pooling decisions, and continuously re-optimize as new information arrives. You will operate as a senior technical IC, leading architecture decisions, mentoring other data scientists, and setting optimization standards across the domain.What You'll Do1. Matching & Dispatch Architecture Ownership
- Design and own the end-to-end matching and dispatch systems for Food & Groceries.
- Architect scalable assignment frameworks incorporating:
- Static and dynamic assignment
- Online matching under uncertainty
- Batch and pooling optimization
- Continuous re-optimization with dynamic events
- Establish robust optimization standards and best practices across the organization.
- Formulate and implement multi-objective optimization models balancing:
- Cost minimization
- SLA compliance
- Marketplace efficiency
- Develop and deploy:
- Min-cost flow and assignment models
- Graph-based optimization frameworks
- Custom solvers and OR-Tools based solutions
- Incorporate stochastic elements and uncertainty-aware decision-making into assignment policies.
- Continuously refine matching quality under high-scale marketplace conditions.
- Build production-grade real-time matching systems using Python, Spark, and Trino.
- Design scalable pipelines capable of handling large-scale, high-throughput marketplace events.
- Collaborate with Engineering and Platform teams to ensure reliable model serving and system performance.
- Lead performance monitoring, diagnostics, and system optimization.
- Define evaluation metrics aligned with marketplace and operational objectives.
- Design and run controlled experiments to quantify matching improvements.
- Analyze system trade-offs and communicate clear, data-driven recommendations to Product and Operations stakeholders.
- Ensure decisions translate into measurable improvements in efficiency and SLA performance.
- 6-8+ years of experience in Applied Machine Learning, Optimization, or Data Science.
- Advanced degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Operations Research, Mathematics, or a related quantitative field.
- Strong expertise in:
- Optimization and assignment algorithms
- Graph modeling and min-cost flow problems
- Multi-objective optimization
- Dynamic and online decision systems
- Hands-on experience with OR-Tools or custom optimization solvers.
- Proficiency in Python, SQL, Spark, and distributed data systems.
- Experience building real-time or near-real-time decision systems.
- Strong understanding of experimentation and performance evaluation in marketplace systems.
- Excellent communication skills with the ability to explain algorithmic trade-offs in business terms.
- Work and learn from great minds by joining a community of inspiring colleagues.
- Put your passion to work in a purposeful organisation dedicated to creating impact in a region with a lot of untapped potential.
- Explore new opportunities to learn and grow every day.
- Work 4 days a week in office & 1 day from home, and remotely from any country in the world for 30 days a year with unlimited vacation days per year. (If you are in an individual contributor role in tech, you will have 2 office days a week and 3 to work from home.)
- Access to healthcare benefits and fitness reimbursements for health activities including gym, health club, and training classes.