Research Engineer (SIA-NUS Corp Lab)

About Us

NUS, Singapore’s flagship university, and SIA, Singapore’s flagship carrier, jointly established a 5-year SIA-NUS Digital Aviation Corporate Laboratory (Corp Lab) to create and commercialise innovative technologies that could accelerate the digital transformation of Singapore’s aviation sector and redefine the air travel experience. It leverages on NUS’s world class deep technology and multi-disciplinary research expertise across Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning, Data Science, Operations Research and Analytics, Optimisation, Automation, Sleep Studies and Design. 

To emerge ahead in today’s digital transformation era, SIA and NUS will jointly target Revenue Management & Dynamic Pricing (for smart data-driven optimization), Transforming Competency and Skill Development (for intelligent and personalised pilot and cabin crew training), Employee Wellness (for data-driven and scientifically-backed improvements to workforce safety, performance and productivity), and Passenger Comfort, Sleep and Cabin Service (for next-generation product offerings and unparalleled customer service within the cabin).

Job Description

The Corporate Lab aims to develop for Singapore Airlines a new approach to design optimal price tiers for air tickets and manage seat inventory, to help maximize revenues for airlines, leveraging on modern analytical tools and technologies that can perform deep data analytics in airline revenue management system. The current solution provided by its new commercial vendor is adequate but could not address specific issues faced by SIA, including the price elasticity estimation, dynamic pricing and competition considerations etc. These are all unique to SIA and customized solution methodology needs to be developed for these purposes. Expertise, infrastructure and relevant background work done at NUS’s Institute of Operations Research and Analytics (IORA), School of Business, School of Computing and Department of Industrial Systems Engineering & Management would be tapped on to add value to the proposed projects.

The Research Engineer will be responsible for

1. Designing experiments to measure the causal effects of the different pricing algorithms
2. Validating key business questions via hypothesis testing
3. Leveraging state-of-the-art causal inference methodology to estimate pricing effects with observational and experimental data
4. Developing new algorithms in the causal estimation
5. Helping integrate the A/B test method into the simulator 
6. Manage and Lead the team in the projects

About You

The University values courage and creativity, openness and engagement, inclusion and diversity, and respect and integrity. As such, we see the importance of recruiting talent aligned to these values and are looking for a Research Fellow who has:

•    A completed Bachelor’s Degree in operations research, econometrics, statistics, or related field
•    Evidence of managing research projects
•    Evidence of ability to conduct high-quality research
•    Background relayed to Causal inference, Experiment design, Causal Structural modeling
•    An emerging track record of academic publications
•    An ability to work in a collaborative team environment
•    Excellent communication skills

Others:
•    Possess good interpersonal skills
•    High comfort level in working within a self-directed culture and navigating ambiguity.
•    Openness to critique from other disciplines and curiosity to learn from a spectrum of perspectives.
•    An empathy and curiosity for how great brands, businesses and organizations navigate innovation and design.
•    Experience with unique and novel tools and methods to uncover key insights
•    willingness to work in a collaborative team environment