Data Scientist

About us

Food waste is a $1 trillion problem – costing the world over 1% of global GDP. We’re dead set on solving the problem and looking for people to help us achieve our mission. We, at Winnow, believe that food is far too valuable to waste, and that technology can transform the way we produce food. Our team is made of people who all share a passion for food and technology.

Winnow was founded in London in 2013 to help the hospitality industry prevent food waste through internet of things tools in the kitchen. We have worked with hundreds of sites and are operating in over 70 countries around the world supported by our offices in London, Dubai, Singapore, Romania and Chicago. We are a rapidly growing company with a strong base of clients who are rolling out our system globally. We have blue-chip customers including Accor Hotels, IKEA, IHG, Marriott, Compass Group and many others.

Winnow’s clients on average reduce waste by over 50% by value and sustain savings. Winnow has now worked with hundreds of sites to reduce food waste, including hotels, universities and schools, staff restaurants, event/hospitality kitchens, buffets, pubs, and high street restaurants. Where the system is permanently adopted, pre-consumer waste value is reduced by 50% - 70% with no detrimental impact to the perceived quality or value of the offer to their customers. This represents a typical improvement of food cost savings of 3% to 8%, commonly a 40%+ increase in profitability for operations.

As the global leader in addressing food waste, we are committed to continue pushing the envelope on what technology can do to solve this problem. Winnow Vision, our new artificial intelligence-based technology, is trained to automatically track all food waste thrown away. It has won awards at the World Economic Forum and has received tremendous enthusiasm from our clients and the industry. You can read more about it on our website and this article in Forbes.

Other recent accolades saw Winnow awarded a winner of Impact 50's most impactful companies to work for. You can read more about it here. Similarly, Winnow has been included in the Top 30 Best Small and Medium companies to work for in 2023 by undelucram.ro.

We are passionate about living our values and place them at the centre of everything we do. We are excited about like minded talent who share these values, joining us in our mission:

Equal parts head and heart. We’re both passionate and measured. We carefully balance the need for quick solutions and pragmatism with the ability to step back, take in the bigger picture and build for the long term.

Bravely honest. With each other, that means we’re a transparent organisation where healthy, respectful debate is encouraged. With our customers, we challenge them if we don’t think they’re achieving their goals, whether they be environmental or financial.

People of action. Done is better than perfect, and we learn by boldly doing then rapidly improving. We’re breaking new ground, so we know things might go wrong. But we judge ourselves and each other on our reaction and our resilience.

Bound by food. We’re a diverse bunch, but our belief in the value of food is the common thread in everything we do. With each other, we celebrate through our love and respect for food. With our customers, it means we work hard to develop creative tools to make it easy for chefs to value food.

Hungry and humble. Our product is revolutionary, our people are impressive, and we’re hungry for change. But, we’re just the catalyst for a bigger movement. We stay humble regardless of our success, and make chefs the heroes in this journey.

People and planet positive. We’re caretakers of the planet, helping to preserve and support it for now and the future. Our work already minimises the impact that the hospitality industry has on the planet, and we’re also committed to actively reducing our own footprint while doing so. We’re leaving the planet and its people better off than we found them.

This is an opportunity to join an exciting organisation and help us propel our growth at what are truly the most exciting and dynamic points in time in our business. You will work alongside a driven team who are motivated by building an exciting business and leaving the world a better place than we found it.

About the team

The Data team plays a critical role in the continuous improvement of our flagship product - Winnow Vision. We've collected millions of images of food items already, and keep collecting thousands every day from the kitchens we operate in. Those images need to be processed, curated and structured to optimise the quality and accuracy of our AI models. Managing this big data pipeline is no easy task: we operate across the world, in a wide variety of industries and our model needs to recognize food ranging from the Malay Nasi Goreng to the American fried chicken, and everything else in between.

We have come a long way - from long data collection time and training small AI models for very specific clients, we have now managed to generalise our approach and can now deploy AI models to almost any kitchen in the world in a matter of a couple of weeks. However, there are still many challenges ahead - today we present a top selection of items to our clients and they confirm the right one - our ambition is to become completely touch less. How can we make our models more confident and more accurate, that is the question!

The Data Science team consists of 4 people, 2 in Cluj and 2 in London.

We are investing in developing new products and services, and this role is responsible for leading data analysis for these innovations.

About the role:

As a Data Scientist, you will be reporting to the Data Scientist Lead and will have a wide range of responsibilities which includes:

• Use your data skills to enhance the confidence and accuracy for our AI models
• Developing and refining complex queries and reports to help other team members execute their roles
• Performing ongoing data analysis to present back insights to clients
• Shape our data processes to optimize efficiency while reducing costs
• Imagine and deliver insightful analysis aiming at improving our user experience
• Monitor and manage the existing fleet of models in the field, and ensure new clients benefit from AI no less than 1 month after installation
• Produce and track key performance indicators
• Take on more complex data analysis problems

Requirements

Excellent numerical and analytical skills

• Strong knowledge in SQL, Python (pandas library particularly) required and willingness to learn more
• Experience handling large data sets from 1,000s to 100,000s of rows
• Experience visualising large datasets
• Experience with AWS
• Comfortable using macros and formulas such as vlookups, sumifs, and pivot tables
• Experience with Grafana, JupyterHub, postgreSQL is a plus
• A willingness to learn and suggest machine learning approaches to solving data problems

Effective verbal and written communication skills

• Ability to turn data into insights and present these insights effectively
• Ability to adapt communication style to suit different audiences
• Ability to facilitate group discussions
• Attention to detail. Ability to develop accurate written materials
• Action oriented. Ability to follow-up on feedback to ensure positive outcomes
• Comfortable training others to develop data skills

Pro-active and critical thinker

• Ability to think out of the box and not afraid to speak up
• Ability to create new processes from scratch
• Ability to influence others to follow best practices
• Flexible and willing to take on new challenges as they emerge

Benefits

• Competitive base salary 
• Meal tickets - 35 RON per working day
• 2 Wellness hours per month plus a 274 RON gross monthly wellness allowance or the option to swap the wellness allowance for a 7Card subscription 
• 25 days of paid vacation time in addition to national holidays, plus the option to buy a further 5 days annual leave 
• Company part-funded private health insurance and eye care allowance
• Life insurance (3 times base salary) 
• Company stock options package 
• Eligible for discretionary annual bonus
• Employee Assistance Programme - 24/7 helpline for your wellbeing
• Learning and development allowance of 1,730 RON annually 
• Hybrid way of working - we’re all in the office on Wednesdays and Thursdays
• Company provided breakfast & snacks on office days
• Early Finish Fridays - log off at 3 PM on a Friday if you have completed your tasks by then
• Our own office space with a great working environment 
• You will love what you do – waking up every day solving one of the biggest social problems of our generation - food waste
• Committed team members with broad experience who share a common passion to build a world class business