Head of Applied Science

Responsibilities

• Reporting directly to the Group CTO, you will have the mandate and space to shape technical strategy and execution.
• Own the business results delivered by the forecasting and optimization portfolio, setting targets with cell leads and tracking financial and operational impact in production.
• Define which decisions to automate next across purchasing, fulfillment center planning, workforce scheduling, and commercial optimization (promotions, markdowns, demand shaping).
• Set the bar for problem framing, method selection, fast production MVPs, honest evaluation/backtesting against business metrics, and reliability monitoring.
• 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.
• Partner closely with cell leads, operations managers, product owners, and engineering leads to align on business metrics, baselines, and seamless system integration.

Requirements

• 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).
• Experience working directly alongside supply chain, warehouse, or logistics operations, including spending time on the floor to understand problems before framing models.

Preferred

• 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.

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.

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.

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.

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
• 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