Head of Data Science Products

ABOUT US 🚀

Hostelworld Group PLC is a ground-breaking social network powered OTA focused on the hostel market, with a clear mission to help travellers find people to hang out with.

Founded in 1999, we’re a well-known trusted brand with 240 teammates across 11 countries; hostel partners in 180 countries; and a strong commitment to building a better world in all that we do.

LOCATION🌍

This role is remote-friendly and can be based in Portugal or Hungary.

WHO YOU’LL WORK WITH 👨🏽‍🤝‍👨🏼

During 2020, Hostelworld pivoted from a more traditional functional CMO/CPO/CTO organisation to a ‘full ownership” growth team plus platform team model. More specifically, we established four growth teams to cover all consumer /hostel facing Apps and channels that reported into the CPO; and a separate CTO organisation that became responsible for supplying and maintaining common core services (such as inventory pricing, availability and checkout) via APIs to these four growth teams. Each of these four growth teams comprise resources that report into the CPO and dedicated resources drawn from the engineering function (developers, QA resources) and analytics function. Collectively, these four growth teams comprise ~ 50 headcount and are wholly accountable for their KPIs and roadmaps.

We currently have four growth teams and four further central/support teams as follows;

• Paid performance team : responsible for growing and optimising our paid web channels, including (web) landing page optimisation
• Core team : responsible for our progressive web app (PWA Website), our organic web channels such as SEO, and more generally our core OTA funnel performance
• Mobile/Social team : responsible for our iOS and Android Apps, including paid and organic downloads, CRM strategy and more generally our social network and event management (LinkUps) platforms
• Supply team : responsible for all our hostel facing platforms and tools, supporting our two sided marketplace through collaboration with our customer facing teams and leading on our inventory, availability and rates position
• Product Design (Central) team : responsible for defining and implementing a uniform User Interface/Experience design language across our consumer and supplier facing Apps, consistent with our Mission and Brand
• Content and Creative (Central) team : responsible for defining and leading the creative direction for Hostelworld, delivering content primarily through the four Growth teams above but also supporting the wider business needs with copywriting, content writing, graphic design and video production assets
• Product and Technology Operations (Central) team : primarily responsible for driving alignment and coordination across the Growth and Technology teams quarterly roadmap planning process; and managing vendor spend across these two teams which accounts for the vast majority of non Wages and Salaries expenditure across the company
• Customer Service (Support) team : responsible for handling all consumer support queries, mostly via webform/chat and email across 19 languages.

We are now creating a Head of Data Science Products role, which will be a new Direct Report to the CPO. This role will lead two talented data scientists and partner with multiple stakeholders across the organisation to create, develop, and enhance data-driven product features that drive business growth and innovation.

WHAT YOU’LL DO 👩‍💻

• Strategic Leadership:
• Build a strong ML vision & strategy aligned with company goals
• Translate the vision and strategy into a product roadmap
• Stakeholder Collaboration:
• Work closely with stakeholders to understand market needs and customer feedback
• Partner with business leaders to identify opportunities for leveraging data science to solve business problems
• Communicate complex data science concepts and solutions to non-technical stakeholders.
• Coordinate with stakeholders and provide timely delivery
• Technical Expertise:
• Lead a team of machine learning engineers to develop best in class algorithms and machine learning models for ranking, recommendation and other data science products
• Serve as lead data scientist, owning all technical aspects of our ML solutions, translating business problems into reliable and robust ML & AI solutions.
• Performance and Impact:
• Define key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure the success and impact of data science product features
• Monitor data product performance and business impact and act accordingly when objectives are not met
• Develop comprehensive diagnostic approaches, a/b testing plans and scalable, repeatable best practices for our data science product development and roll out processes
• Team Leadership:
• Coach, mentor and develop team members, to include:
• Cultivating an environment where team members feel motivated and inspired to achieve and exceed their assigned goals
• Fostering a culture of continuous improvement, encouraging team members to explore modern technologies and methodologies to enhance their skills
• Inspiring and guiding the team to achieve their professional goals, creating a sense of purpose and pride in their work
• Being a responsible advocate for the team, ensuring their voices are heard, and their contributions are recognised and rewarded.

WHAT WE’RE LOOKING FOR 👀

Skills & Experience required:

• Experience leading a high performing data science and machine learning engineering team ideally in ecommerce or two sided marketplaces
• 10+ years experience as data scientist in a digital product environment developing & deploying successful ranking and recommendation systems through the application of Machine Learning to business problems space
• Experience across all machine learning workstreams: using large data sets, model development, statistics, experimentation, data visualization, optimization, software development.
• Mastery of experimental design, A/B testing, and evaluation metrics for ML models.
• Strong programming skills in languages such as Python and Java.
• Experience with cloud frameworks like VertexAI
• Experience initiating and completing data science projects with minimal guidance.
• Experience communicating results of analysis to diverse stakeholder groups and senior leadership
• Expertise in the Machine Learning lifecycle, including building models through experiments, deploying the best ones, and managing them at scale for continuous value in production.
• Expertise in ML platform engineering practices, tools, frameworks, and technologies available.
• Expertise in CI/CD, DevOps, and container technologies.
• Experienced in building and managing automated self-healing low-latency platforms.
• DOMAIN EXPERTISE – Experienced leader who brings a proven track record of building successful Data Science products. In particular, we expect the successful candidate to possess the following:
• Significant experience building and operating successful ranking & recommender systems;
• A track record of delivering consistent and strong commercial outcomes such as increased revenue per user
• PEOPLE LEADERSHIP & COMMUNICATION / INFLUENCING SKILLS – Strong, inspiring leader and communicator, able to formulate and present a compelling data science vision as well as take people on a journey. Will have a proven track record in attracting, managing, and developing outstanding talent. Will be highly effective at cross-functional stakeholder management, able to influence and add value to all levels of the organisation, maintaining internal credibility for data science within the growth organisation.
• ANALYTICAL, DATA-DRIVEN & COMMERCIALLY-MINDED – Will be highly analytical with a structured problem-solving approach. Will be metrics and ROI driven and embed a culture of data and fact-based decision-making. Will have strong commercial instincts and will constantly think about how to drive growth.
• STRATEGIC & EXECUTION-FOCUSED / HANDS-ON – Will have a strategic mindset bringing clarity of thought to their work. Will also adopt a hands-on approach and be close to the detail.

WHAT WE OFFER 💯

• Competitive salary & benefits
• Enhanced annual leave plus 3 Wellbeing Days per year
• Paid family leave (maternity, paternity, surrogacy & adoption)
• Agile working (plus a Working from Abroad Policy!)
• Support for your ongoing growth & development
• Inclusive people policies (sickness, menopause, compassionate and fertility leave)
• A chance to give back to your local community with 5 paid volunteering days

Our people are key to our success. Our talented and diverse teams reflect the diversity of our customers and the communities in which we operate. Everyone brings different perspectives and experiences; you don’t have to meet all the requirements listed above to apply for this role.