Sr. Operations Research Specialist - Optimization

Norfolk Southern offers a unique opportunity to be part of a proud legacy that spans nearly 200 years. We are a customer-centric, operations-driven team dedicated to advancing safety, serving communities, and driving innovation for tomorrow's rail. As part of Norfolk Southern, you’ll join a collaborative team where there are opportunities for growth across the organization. We are building a culture where everyone can thrive by owning and driving exceptional results, being humble, leading with trust, serving customers with excellence, and collaborating and coaching to win.

About the role

This position will provide management with recommendations for the use of analytical models and decision support systems to drive productivity and efficiency, achieve operational excellence, increase revenues, and reduce costs. Domestic travel is approximately 10% of the time. When not required to travel, this individual will telecommute to the office in alignment with Norfolk Southern’s hybrid work policy.

Responsibilities

• Provide production support and enhancements for existing operations research applications.
• Design new mathematical or machine learning models and implement them in programming languages such as C/C++, Java, and Python.
• Evaluate the accuracy and quality of data sources and develop appropriate remedies for data gaps.
• Collaborate with business partners in various departments to identify opportunities for process improvement.
• Work with application development teams to integrate developed models into a production environment.
• Perform a leadership role and supervise a group of people to achieve goals by creating an environment that promotes positive communication, encourages bonding of team members, and demonstrates flexibility.
• Ensure work efforts are compliant with approved corporate policies, departmental standards, and procedures.
• Apply understanding of industry best practices, optimization methodologies, and emerging technologies in operations research.
• Provide leadership to various groups to achieve goals by fostering an environment that promotes positive communication and teamwork.

Requirements

• Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering, Civil Engineering, Operations Research, Information Systems, or a related, relevant field.
• Minimum of one (1) year of experience with operations research modeling, simulation, and advanced analytics in the transportation industry, including:
  • Developing decision support systems using operations research models.
  • Managing projects related to the design and development of operations research models and decision support systems.
  • Utilizing operations research techniques and engineering skills in delivering decision support systems.
  • Analyzing existing operations research applications and providing production support and enhancements.
  • Designing new mathematical and/or machine learning models and implementing them in programming languages such as C/C++, Java, and/or Python.
  • Evaluating the accuracy and quality of data sources and developing appropriate remedies for data gaps.
  • Integrating developed models into a production environment.
  • Identifying complex problems and reviewing related information to develop and evaluate options and implement solutions.
• Demonstrated knowledge of:
  • Software development methodology.
  • CPLEX, Gurobi, or other optimization solvers.
  • Programming languages for software development such as C/C++, Java, or Python.
  • Database programming languages such as SQL.
  • Hands-on experience with Databricks.
• Must be able to work weekends and on-call as necessary.

Pay

$114,208 to $183,626 per year

Location: 650 West Peachtree Street NW, Atlanta, GA 30308