Staff Applied Scientist

About DAT

DAT  is an award-winning employer of choice and a next-generation SaaS technology company that has been at the leading edge of innovation in transportation supply chain logistics for 45 years. We continue to transform the industry year over year, by deploying a suite of software solutions to millions of customers every day - customers who depend on DAT for the most relevant data and most accurate insights to help them make smarter business decisions and run their companies more profitably. We operate the largest marketplace of its kind in North America, with 400 million freights posted in 2022, and a database of $150 billion of annual global shipment market transaction data. Our headquarters are in Denver, CO, and Beaverton, OR, with additional offices in Seattle, WA; Springfield, MO; and Bangalore, India. For additional information, see

Job Application Deadline : 09 / 30 / 2025

The Opportunity

DAT’s Convoy Platform team is seeking a Staff Applied Scientist to design and deploy the next generation of marketplace algorithms and intelligent decision systems that power the movement of freight across the nation.

You will tackle some of the most challenging problems in digital logistics : matching supply with demand at scale, allocating resources efficiently under uncertainty, and building systems that can make and refine complex, high‑judgment decisions continuously as new information arrives.

This is a hands‑on, end‑to‑end science role where you will :

• Conceptualize, propose, implement and iterate on algorithms that optimize a dynamic two‑sided marketplace in real time
• Build decision engines that learn from feedback and guide operational and product outcomes
• Blend techniques from machine learning, optimization, and causal inference to deliver measurable marketplace improvements
• Take ideas from research to production, ensuring seamless integration into our operational systems

You will be joining at a pivotal point in DAT’s transformation, bringing together Convoy’s industry‑leading technology with DAT’s scale and deep market presence to create the most advanced digital freight network in the country. The solutions you build will help move billions of dollars of freight more efficiently, reducing waste and increasing value for shippers, brokers, and carriers.

You are someone who will

As a Staff Applied Scientist, you will set technical direction, mentor other scientists, and deliver solutions whose impact scales across teams and the broader Convoy Platform, not just within individual projects.

Whether you’re using collaborative filtering to generate highly personalized load recommendations, enhancing those recommendations with a conversational AI agent powered by LLMs to deliver actionable offers to carriers, or reimagining auction mechanisms and carrier engagement with multi-armed bandits, your mandate is to identify and apply the right algorithmic and data-driven approach to maximize the impact of every feature. You’ll drive innovation across the Convoy Platform, always seeking new ways for our systems to make smarter, faster, and more reliable decisions.

There are many situations where models simply do not outperform humans. We are looking for individuals who are open to building systems capable of ingesting human inputs. This means as part of the role, you will continuously analyze feedback from brokers and carriers to identify areas for improvement, fine-tune auction parameters, and optimize performance.

Science drives automated decisions across many domains at the Convoy platform. We seek individuals with a history of leading successful collaborations with cross-functional teams, including product managers, engineers, and data scientists, to ensure seamless integration of the modeling solutions within the Engineering systems.

We’d like the individuals joining our team to stay up-to-date with the latest advancements in machine learning, optimization techniques, and market dynamics to drive innovation and maintain a competitive edge.

What You'll Do

Enhance our industry-leading auction mechanism to better match broker loads with carriers, tackling dynamic pricing, marketplace fairness, and efficiency at scale

Build and deploy next-generation AI products, including LLM-driven text and voice interfaces, enabling customers to interact more naturally through chat, voice assistants, and automated workflows

Create robust fraud detection and risk management models to maintain the safety and integrity of our network

Deliver intelligent load recommendations, using Convoy and DAT’s rich user behavior data. Test, learn and iterate with multi-armed bandits.

Design and analyze experiments to accurately measure the impact of new features and pricing strategies across our marketplace

Mentor other scientists and deliver solutions whose impact scales across teams and the broader Convoy Platform

Lead successful collaborations with product managers, engineers, and data scientists to ensure seamless integration of modeling solutions within engineering systems

Maintain expertise in the latest advancements in machine learning, optimization techniques, and market dynamics to drive innovation and maintain competitive edge

The Skills and Experience You'll Bring

Ph.D. or MS in Computer Science, Statistics, Applied Mathematics / Operations Research, Engineering, or related quantitative field

Minimum of 7+ years of experience developing and deploying machine learning solutions in production environments

Expert-level proficiency with Python and production-grade machine learning frameworks (PyTorch, TensorFlow, scikit-learn), with hands-on experience in large language models (LLMs), retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), and modern natural language processing (NLP) toolkits

Demonstrated ability to build, deploy, and monitor both classic and generative AI models in real-world systems, with comfort working with APIs, microservices, and data pipelines

Proven track record of translating ambiguous business problems into automated, scalable decision-making tools with a bias for action and operational excellence

We'd be extra excited if

Why DAT?

DAT is an award winning employer of choice.

For starters, we have a hybrid work environment, but we also know what makes a great workplace. We have a time-tested and resolute set of operating values predicated on integrity, mutual respect, open communication, and executing with excellence. These values inform our strategic vision as much as any one of our products does. We’ve been an employer of choice in the Portland metropolitan area for four decades, and within one year of opening our Denver office, DAT was #26 on Built In Colorado’s 100 Best Places to Work In Colorado.

For Washington-based candidates, in compliance with the Washington State Pay Transparency Law, the salary range for this role is $201,000 - $277,000 + target bonus + benefits. DAT considers factors such as scope and responsibilities of the position, candidate's work experience, education and training, core skills, internal equity, and market and business elements when extending an offer.

DAT embraces the value of a diverse workforce, and believes it is a core strength of our company that we encourage those values in every DAT employee, at every level of our organization, regardless of tenure or rank. We provide equal employment opportunities (EEO) to all employees and applicants without regard to race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, age, disability, genetic information, marital status, amnesty, or status as a covered veteran in accordance with applicable federal, state, and local laws.

Equal Opportunity Employer / Protected Veterans / Individuals with Disabilities

The contractor will not discharge or in any other manner discriminate against employees or applicants because they have inquired about, discussed, or disclosed their own pay or the pay of another employee or applicant. However, employees who have access to the compensation information of other employees or applicants as a part of their essential job functions cannot disclose the pay of other employees or applicants to individuals who do not otherwise have access to compensation information, unless the disclosure is (a) in response to a formal complaint or charge, (b) in furtherance of an investigation, proceeding, hearing, or action, including an investigation conducted by the employer, or (c) consistent with the contractor’s legal duty to furnish information. 41 CFR 60-1.35(c)

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