PhD Internship – Operational Research

The Tesco Data Science team are offering 12-week paid internships for PhD students within the team. The start date for each internship is flexible but must be between May and August 2024.

At Tesco, our Data Science team focuses on modelling complex business problems and deploying data products at scale; a key part of this is using Operational Research techniques to optimise automated processes and to support decision making. Our work spans across multiple areas including physical stores, online, supply chain, and last mile delivery. This requires our Data Scientists to have an advanced understanding of advanced exact, heuristic, or metaheuristic algorithms and statistics. The team itself is made up of researchers and practitioners with varied backgrounds from both academia and the business world.

As an intern, you will join the team and get hands on experience of what it’s like to be a Data Scientist at Tesco. You’ll work with the team on helping us solve an exciting real-life problem. In addition to the technical mentorship and training provided by the team we will also provide a personal mentor to help you get the most out of the internship.

If that sounds exciting, then we'd love to hear from you!

The position will be based in either our London (Farringdon) office or our Welwyn Garden City campus.

This is a hands-on position where you will need to use an analytical approach to find solutions to complex problems. As a PhD Intern you will work within the Data Science team, to understand difficult business problems and prototype solutions. A core component of the role is to translate business problems to operations research problems and then solve them. Our interns will need to be able to validate, document and present the modelling process and performances, as well as communicate complex solutions in a clear, understandable way to non-experts.

We are looking for ambitious PhD students (in their final or penultimate year) or Postdoctoral Researchers with a strong numerical background and a strong desire to pursue a career in data science.

An ideal candidate will have a scientific mentality with the ability to ask the right questions, as well as answer them. Experience in one or more of the following fields would be ideal:

• Meta-heuristic algorithms
• Advanced exact algorithms
• Mixed Integer Linear Programming
• Simulation either DES or ABM

Finally, good programming skills are essential (either Python or Java is preferred) and ideally some familiarity with SWE best practices (such as version control and unit testing).

We’re all about the little helps. That’s why we give our wonderful colleagues bags of benefits. Including wellbeing services, an award-winning pension scheme and much, much more, our colleague reward package keeps on giving.  And helps make every day a little better for you and your family.  These include but are not limited to:

• Colleague bonus scheme
• Holiday starting at 25 days plus a personal day (plus Bank holidays)
• Buy holiday salary sacrifice scheme (for salaried roles)
• Retirement savings plan - save between 4% and 7.5% and Tesco will match your contribution
• Life Assurance - 5 x contractual pay
• 26 weeks maternity and adoption leave (after 1 years’ service) at full pay, followed by 13 weeks of Statutory Maternity Pay or Statutory Adoption Pay, we also offer 4 weeks fully paid paternity leave
• The right to request flexible working from your first day with us
• Free 24/7 virtual GP service, Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) for you and your family, free access to a range of experts to support your mental wellbeing
• A Colleague Clubcard for you & a family member (after 3 months of service), giving you access to lots of discounts in-store & online
• Great colleague deals and discounts, saving you money on everyday purchases, eating out and utility bills for the home
• Access to our colleague networks providing a space for colleagues to come together from a range of backgrounds. For more information about our colleague networks please click here 
• Opportunities to get on - take advantage of our ongoing learning opportunities and award-winning training, to help you achieve the job and career you want

Click Here to read more about the full range of benefits we have available for our colleagues

Our vision at Tesco is to become every customer's favourite way to shop, whether they are at home or out on the move. Our core purpose is ‘Serving our customers, communities and planet a little better every day’. Serving means more than a transactional relationship with our customers. It means acting as a responsible and sustainable business for all stakeholders, for the communities we are part of and for the planet.

We are proud to have an inclusive culture at Tesco where everyone truly feels able to be themselves. At Tesco, we not only celebrate diversity, but recognise the value and opportunity it brings. We're committed to creating a workplace where differences are valued, and make sure that all colleagues are given the same opportunities. We’re proud to have been accredited Disability Confident Leader and we’re committed to providing a fully inclusive and accessible recruitment process. For further information on the accessibility support we can offer, please click here.

We’re a big business and we can offer a range of diverse full-time & part-time working patterns across our many business areas, which means that we can find something that works for you.  We work in a more blended pattern - combining office and remote working.  Our offices will continue to be where we connect, collaborate and innovate.  If you are applying internally, please speak to the Hiring Manager about how this can work for you - Everyone is welcome at Tesco.