Principal Data Scientist, Pricing

UP.Labs

$150K — $180K *
Transportation
8 - 10 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • 8+ years of experience in data science and machine learning with a focus on pricing and revenue optimization.
  • Proven success in building and deploying ML models for dynamic pricing and demand forecasting.
  • Strong quantitative modeling skills, especially in operations research or systems engineering.
  • Experience in real-world applications of pricing and supply/demand balancing in production environments.
  • Familiarity with freight and logistics data or related markets is highly advantageous.
  • Ability to navigate ambiguous and rapidly changing environments while defining project direction.
  • Skilled at communicating complex modeling concepts to non-technical stakeholders.
  • Proficient in Python, SQL, and popular machine learning libraries.

Responsibilities

  • Own the data science function focused on freight pricing and revenue optimization.
  • Build and enhance ML models for dynamic pricing and demand forecasting.
  • Design and conduct pricing experiments to validate model performance.
  • Collaborate with engineers on transitioning models from prototype to production.
  • Validate business assumptions related to freight pricing and contribute to monetization strategies.
  • Establish data science best practices and governance standards for the project.

Benefits

  • Impactful role in shaping the future of freight pricing and logistics.
  • Opportunity to work with one of the largest freight and logistics companies in North America.
  • Collaborative environment with close partnership across product and engineering teams.
  • Chance to tackle industry-wide pricing challenges that affect carriers, brokers, and shippers.
  • Potential for growth in a pioneering venture within a leading company.
Full Job Description
About the Role

We're partnering with one of the largest freight and logistics companies in North America to reinvent how the trucking industry prices, bids, and captures value. This is a rare chance to work alongside a market leader with unmatched freight data depth, tackling pricing problems that have plagued carriers, brokers, and shippers for decades.

As the Principal Data Scientist for this venture, you'll own the modeling and analytical intelligence behind our pricing product - building, validating, and iterating on the ML systems that power how our platform recommends and adapts freight pricing in real time. You'll partner closely with product and engineering, but your core mandate is the science: the models, the experiments, the insights that make the product defensible.

What You'll Do

  • Own the data science function for the venture, with freight pricing and revenue optimization as your primary domain
  • Build and iterate on ML models - dynamic spot and contract pricing, lane-level demand forecasting, load acceptance optimization, price elasticity, and market benchmarking
  • Design and run pricing experiments to validate model performance and surface actionable insights for product and commercial decisions
  • Partner with engineers to move models from prototype into production - providing guidance on deployment, monitoring, and model maintenance
  • Validate early business assumptions around freight pricing mechanics and contribute to the venture's monetization strategy with data-driven analysis
  • Establish data science best practices and model governance standards for the venture


What You Bring

  • 8+ years of experience in data science and machine learning, with meaningful time spent on pricing, revenue optimization, or demand modeling
  • Demonstrated experience building and deploying ML models in production: dynamic pricing, price elasticity, willingness-to-pay, bid optimization, or similar
  • Strong ML and quantitative modeling background - whether grounded in data science, operations research, or systems engineering
  • Experience applying these skills to pricing, network optimization, supply/demand balancing, or marketplace dynamics in production environments
  • Familiarity with freight, logistics, or transportation data is a strong plus - lane economics, spot vs. contract dynamics, fuel surcharges, or carrier capacity signals
  • Comfort in ambiguous, early-stage environments where the data is messy, the roadmap is evolving, and you're expected to define the approach
  • Experience translating model outputs and tradeoffs into clear language for product, commercial, and executive stakeholders
  • Proficiency with standard data science tooling: Python, SQL, and relevant ML libraries


Nice to Have

  • Experience in freight or adjacent industries with similar pricing and network complexity: rideshare, airlines, ecommerce fulfillment, or digital marketplaces.
  • Familiarity with A/B testing frameworks for pricing experiments
  • Experience with reinforcement learning applied to dynamic pricing or sequential decision problems
  • Exposure to network optimization or capacity planning problems in logistics
  • Experience working with cloud data infrastructure (AWS, GCP, or Azure) and warehouse tooling (Snowflake, Databricks, dbt)

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