Senior Developer - Operations Research

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Description

Job overview and responsibilities

As a Senior Developer (L4) in the Digital Technology team at United Airlines, you will play a pivotal role in designing, developing, and implementing advanced Operations Research models and optimization systems that enhance airline network planning and scheduling.

You will collaborate with cross-functional teams, including Operations Research specialists, software engineers, and business stakeholders, to build scalable mathematical models and integrate them into enterprise-grade airline platforms. Your work will directly improve aircraft utilization, scheduling efficiency, connectivity, and cost optimization across a global airline network.

The ideal candidate has strong expertise in optimization, mathematical modeling, and large-scale system development, with hands-on experience building Operations Research solutions for complex real-world scheduling and planning problems as well as deep programming skills.

As a Senior Developer – Operations Research at United Airlines, you will:

• Be a member of the product development team responsible for designing and developing new and existing applications supporting airline network planning and scheduling solutions.
• Build and implement high-quality Operations Research (OR) or ML models following software engineering best practices.
• Develop mathematical programming models, including linear programming, mixed-integer programming, nonlinear optimization, or ML/ statistical models, to solve complex airline operational problems.
• Work closely with engineering teams to integrate optimization models into applications and digital platforms.
• Develop optimization solutions considering constraints such as aircraft allocation, connectivity, airport slot constraints, availability, and operational cost efficiency.
• Solve large-scale optimization problems using CPLEX and similar commercial solvers or Extensive experience designing, training, and operationalizing machine learning solutions, including LightGBM and other gradient boosting frameworks, in large-scale enterprise environments with high-volume data and business-critical decision-making processes.
• Collaborate with Operations Research specialists and stakeholders to translate business requirements into analytical and algorithmic solutions.
• Analyze model performance and provide recommendations to improve operational efficiency and decision-making outcomes.
• Continuously enhances optimization model efficiency, scalability, and robustness through research-driven improvements.
• Production support.
  
  

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Operations Research, Mathematics or industrial engineering
• 4+ years of experience in applied Operations Research, optimization, decision analysis, or mathematical modeling.
• 4+ years of experience working with commercial optimization software such as IBM ILOG CPLEX, Gurobi, or Machine Learning and statistical modeling.
• 8+ years of experience and strong programming skills in Python or Julia.
• Knowledge of C++ is preferred.
• Very good knowledge of Linux, shell scripting and software development process.
• Experience with Cloud environment (AWS preferred)
• Strong analytical, problem-solving, and communication skills.
• Airline domain knowledge is an added advantage.
• Experience working in fast-paced, optimization-driven, or research-oriented environments.