About the Role
">
As a Data Scientist, you will be working on creating an exciting first-of-its-kind NLP search function in our business. This role requires making an impact by applying advanced NLP and Information Retrieval techniques to design intelligent search experiences.
This is a unique opportunity to shape a product from its foundational AI capabilities. You will be instrumental in designing and implementing the intelligent core of our platform, directly impacting millions of users by helping them discover properties in ways they never thought possible.
">
Your Responsibilities
">
* Support strategy and development - Applying advanced NLP and Information Retrieval techniques to design intelligent search experiences that blend semantic, lexical, and hybrid methods.
* Understand user intent and meaning – Leveraging industry best practice to enhance multi-modal query understanding, result summarisation, and search relevance in large-scale, real-time systems.
* Support data exploration and enrichment - Analysing search logs, user queries, and engagement signals to uncover patterns and drive data-informed relevance improvements.
* Hyper-personalised ranking and retrieval – explore and spike solutions for indexing, retrieval, ranking, and re-ranking using offline metrics, human judgement, and online experimentation (e.g. A/B tests).
* Guidance and insights - Translating complex modelling outcomes into clear, actionable insights for product, engineering, and design stakeholders.
* Research and innovation - Experimenting with the latest tools, embeddings, LLMs, and retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) techniques to unlock new search capabilities.
* Cross-functional collaboration - Collaborating with product and engineering teams to productionise search models, define evaluation pipelines, and monitor performance across diverse user segments.
">
You'll Thrive In This Role If:
">
* You have an MSc or PhD in Computer Science, Computational Physics, Mathematics, Statistics, or a similar discipline.
* You have 3+ years of hands-on industry experience working in AI search (traditional or NLP).
* You are proficient with a variety of machine learning models (e.g. classification, regression, structured/unstructured data analysis) in a commercial production environment.
* You have strong product thinking with a focus on user outcomes, motivated to build fast, relevant, and impactful search experiences.
* You thrive in a fast-paced environment and willing to adapt quickly.
* You have confidence in storytelling/influencing with stakeholders to guide the product strategy and roadmap.
* You are motivated to learn and share knowledge, mentoring others and striving to do things better.
">
The REA Experience
">
We care about the physical, mental, emotional and financial health of our people. This is a place to learn and grow.
">
Perks and Benefits
">
* A hybrid and flexible approach to working.
* Flexible leave options including birthday leave and purchase additional leave.
* Flexible parental leave offering for primary and secondary carers.
* Our Because We Care program offers employees volunteering leave, community grants, matched payroll giving and our Community Café donates 100% of revenue to charity.
* Hackdays so you can bring your big ideas to life.
">
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
">
We are committed to providing a working environment that embraces and values diversity, equity and inclusion. We believe teams with diverse ideas and experiences are more creative, more effective and fuel disruptive thinking.