Senior Data Scientist

Serko is a cutting-edge tech platform in global business travel & expense technology. When you join Serko, you become part of a team of passionate travellers and technologists bringing people together, using the world’s leading business travel marketplace. We are proud to be an equal opportunity employer, and we embrace the richness of diversity, showing up authentically to create a positive impact. There's an exciting road ahead of us, where travel needs real, impactful change.

With offices in New Zealand, Australia, North America, and China, we are thrilled to be expanding our global footprint, landing our new hub in Bengaluru, India. With a rapid growth plan in place for India, we’re hiring people from different backgrounds, experiences, abilities, and perspectives to help us build a world-class team and product.

We are looking for a Senior Data Scientist to build and implement cutting-edge models within AI-agentic environments to drive product performance. You will work closely with Product and cross-functional teams to shape the roadmap, identify opportunities where data can unlock growth and build scalable data products that deliver real value to our customers.

We are looking for someone to hit the ground running by delivering against an ambitious timeline to MVP and the architectural runway to build something that doesn't exist yet. You'll play a pivotal role in shaping how we use data to build smarter products, make better decisions, and accelerate growth. This is a hands-on, high-impact role where your models and insights will directly influence customer experience and business strategy. Candidates who have a demonstrable background in taking AI/ML data product to market will take preference above all else.

What you'll do

• Deliver business impact by developing and deploying world-class data science solutions across critical areas of the product and business.
• Build and implement models within AI-agentic environments that drive product performance — including Recommender Systems (collaborative filtering, content-based filtering), Ranking algorithms, Reinforcement Learning and Deep Learning (heterogeneous graph transformer).
• Drive velocity of delivery by efficiently scoping, prioritising, and executing projects while maintaining a high technical bar.
• Solve novel problems quickly and creatively, adapting new technologies and frameworks to emerging business needs.
• Partner with Product to co-create data-informed roadmaps, ensuring feature priorities align with measurable outcomes.
• Identify and tackle opportunities and risks across the business that can be addressed through data.
• Communicate clearly with senior stakeholders by translating complex technical problems into concise, digestible business terms.
• Mentor and lead other data scientists, analysts, and engineers, fostering a culture of collaboration, curiosity, and innovation.

What you'll bring

• Proven record of building and implementing models at velocity to drive tangible business outcomes.
• Expertise in machine learning, applied statistics, and modern AI/ML techniques.
• Strong grasp of experimentation frameworks and designing for scalability and maintainability in production.
• Exceptional communication skills with a demonstrated ability to distil technical complexity for non-technical audiences.
• Deep understanding of product development cycles and how data science integrates into product decisions.
• Experience mentoring or leading a data science team.
• Strong coding skills in Python (or similar) and familiarity with key data frameworks and pipelines.
• Curious, proactive mindset with the ability to spot unseen opportunities and innovate under ambiguity.

At Serko, we aim to create a place where people can come and do their best work.  This means you’ll be operating in an environment with great tools and support to enable you to perform at the highest level of your abilities, producing high-quality and delivering innovative and efficient results. Our people are fully engaged, continuously improving, and encouraged to make an impact.

Some of the benefits of working at Serko are:

• A competitive base pay
• Medical Benefits
• Discretionary incentive plan based on individual and company performance
• Focus on development: Access to a learning & development platform and opportunity for you to own your career pathways
• Flexible work policy