Head of Applied Science

Rohlik is the leading Central European e-grocer. More than a million customers shop with us across [](http://Rohlik.cz), [](http://Knuspr.de), [](http://Kifli.hu), [](http://Gurkerl.at), and [](http://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 [](http://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? #LI-ML1