Senior Data Scientist - Operational Research

About this role

Relay is fundamentally reshaping how goods move in an online era. Backed by Europe’s largest-ever logistics Series A ($35M) led by deep-tech investors Plural, and a recently closed Series B ($95M), Relay is scaling faster than 99% of venture-backed startups. We're assembling the most talent-dense team the logistics industry has ever seen Relay’s Mission is to free commerce from friction . Today, high delivery costs act as a hidden tax on e-commerce, quietly shaping what can be sold online and limiting who can participate.

We envision a world where more goods move more freely between more people , making the online shopping experience seamless and accessible to everyone. THE TEAM • ~160 people , around half in engineering, product and data • 45+ advanced degrees across computer science, mathematics and operations research • Thousands of data points captured, calculated, analysed and predicted for every single parcel we handle • An intellectually vibrant culture of first‑principles thinking , tight feedback loops and relentless experimentation The Opportunity A last-mile marketplace runs on decisions — which parcels? on which routes? delivered by which couriers? at what price? Thousands of them, made every single day.

Good decisions have fast and meaningful impact across the entire Relay Network. Our Operational Research team are responsible for the intelligent systems that optimise the most complex decisions across our network. As the first Operational Research Scientist in Last Mile Marketplace, you will design, build and evolve the optimisation models and solvers that sit at the heart of Relay's last-mile network — These are production Decision systems that shape how Relay operates every day.

This is a senior individual contributor role. You will work alongside Data Scientists, Analysts, and Engineers in a squad focussed on developing the tech defining our last mile marketplace. This role sits within Relay’s Data function, joining a dedicated Operational Research team, reporting into the Staff Decision Systems Architect. What You'll Do Translate operational requirements into optimisation models across scheduling, assignment and pricing problems.