Director - Research

The Mission

At ixigo, we’ve always been AI-first. From predicting PNR status to automating customer support, intelligence is in our DNA. As the Director of Research, you will lead our leap from traditional ML to a future powered by Agentic AI and Foundation Models. You will bridge the gap between "what’s possible" in a lab and "what’s valuable" for millions of Indian travelers, building the brain that powers the leading OTA for the Next Billion Users.

What You’ll Do: The High-Stakes Stuff

• Define the long-term AI roadmap: You won’t just follow trends; you’ll decide how Machine Learning and AI can uniquely solve travel pain points.

• Build & Scale: Lead a world-class team of Applied Scientists and ML Engineers.

• Consumer Impact: Deeply understand consumer behavior to build models that feel like magic to the user.

• Cross-Pollination: Partner with Product and Engineering to ensure AI isn't a silo, but a horizontal layer that enhances every click on the ixigo, ConfirmTkt, and AbhiBus apps.

Your DNA

• The Scientist-Builder: You have a PhD or Master's in CS/AI/Math, but you also have "calluses on your hands" from shipping real products. You know that a model is only as good as the problem it solves.

• LLM Native: You live and breathe Transformers. You understand the nuances of prompt engineering, fine-tuning, and the infrastructure required to serve large models at scale.

• The Scale Expert: You’ve handled datasets that would make a regular laptop melt. You are comfortable with distributed computing, MLOps, and optimizing models for mobile-first environments.

• Strategic & Witty: You can explain complex neural networks to a boardroom and the business value of a gradient descent to a developer—and you might even make a joke about it in the process.

Technical Requirements 

1. Foundation Models & Generative AI

• Deep expertise in traditional and foundational Machine learning techniques and models.

• Extensive experience with Deep learning architectures, fine-tuning, and efficient adaptation techniques.

• Proven ability to build autonomous agents capable of multi-step reasoning and tool-based execution.

• Expertise in building and deploying high-concurrency models at scale.

• Mastery of production-grade retrieval systems and vector database management.

• Experience with Vision-Language Models for automating document parsing and voice-interface models for vernacular language support.

2. Architecture & MLOps

• Experience with high-throughput, low-latency serving frameworks.

• Ability to architect AI-first microservices that handle hundreds of millions of requests monthly while managing compute costs.

3. Academic & Professional Pedigree

• Education: MS or PhD in Computer Science, AI, Mathematics, or a related quantitative field.

• Experience: 10+ years in technology, with at least 5+ years leading high-performance AI research or applied science teams in a fast-paced consumer tech environment.

• The "Builder" Portfolio: A portfolio of shipped products is preferred over a portfolio of just research papers. We value "Production-ready Research.

Why ixigo?

• Impact at Scale: Your code will influence the travel decisions of 1 in every 3 Indians.

• Innovation Playground: Work with proprietary data from rail, air, and bus sectors that no one else has.

• Culture: We move fast, we experiment fearlessly, and we are obsessed with the "Next Billion Users."

Responsible for safeguarding sensitive company data against unauthorized access, use, or disclosure, and for reporting any suspected security incidents in line with the organization's ISMS (Information Security Management System) policies and procedures.