Global Head of Data (Based in Singapore)

The role

Summary

Take ownership, train and grow the data engineering and statistical learning ("data science") team of the largest Logistics company in South East Asia, covering a population three times the size of US’. We are headquartered above Tanjong Pagar in Singapore, with a great view and year round warm weather.

Situation

Alibaba Group has injected two billion dollars into Lazada Group, a South East Asian conglomerate whose logistics arm, Lazada eLogistics (LeL), provides end to end logistics services and acts as a logistics marketplace.

LeL is a data driven business, but the data function is still embryonic. Our CEO and CTO themselves are pushing for the creation of a dedicated data engineering and data science team to take its place at the centre of the company. 

A data warehouse project has begun, with 20 systems' backend databases replicated hourly or live into a multi-TB PostgreSQL instance. A "clean" (normalised) schema is created from it, a set of views that organises the data into a form that represents the real logic of the business cross-systems. The "raw" schema contains all the replicated databases, the "logical" schema contains the cross-system normalised information, and we're now building the part that gets from the first to the second. The result will be one of the largest *relational* PostgreSQL deployment in the world.

The next compulsory steps will be:

- To complete writing the raw-to-logical mapping, thus modelling and implementing a clean view of all the company's information.

- To assist, train, mentor and otherwise lead the existing team into completing the mapping.

- To replicate the functional spec of all existing data products within the company (mostly reports).

- To expand the team to cover skillsets not currently present or trainable.

- To build and provide the ability for the team to answer any question from any part of the business promptly and correctly (such as "what is the average time a package between 2 and 5kg spends being picked in cold storage zones between 9 and 11am in Thailand and Myanmar a week after Chinese New Year").

Optional paths thereafter could be:

- To assist the CEO and CTO with their existing statistical learning projects, such as optimising the routing of millions of packages through multiple transport companies and warehouses internationally.

- To think of, develop and deploy other data-driven projects such as optimising warehouse picking operations or inventory management.

- To train local teams capable of doing the same independently, and support their efforts. This involves travelling around Asia.

Likely useful experience:

- Software development (aside from building actual software, you'll need to read a lot of code to understand systems whose logic is not at database level).

- A mathematical bend, including awareness of and respect for the ideas behind the relational model ("predicate logic on sets") as defined by Edgar Codd and Chris Date, and rich data types. If you see a foreign key as a mathematical domain and think in terms of relation values and variables, we are probably on the same page.

- Knowing your way around PostgreSQL, or failing that any large scale RDBMS deployment; there are infrastructure teams and DBAs but they need your guidance.

- At least some enjoyment of the resolution of large, complex problems using more abstract methods as opposed to quick hacks and duct tape.

- UNIX/Linux, but if you've read that far you probably have more than enough experience. 

- Speaking Chinese (Mandarin) may help a bit but the team has multiple native speakers.

Interview process:

- Email [email protected] to be sent a few quick questions. Include "6h9mYszLTq2Y" in the subject line so we know you're not a bot.

- An hour or two over Skype for probing your technical experience.

- An hour or two in Singapore (if you are there) or over Skype for the C-levels to figure out if they can work with you.