Principal Economist

Relay is fundamentally reshaping how goods move in an online era. Backed by Europe’s largest-ever logistics Series A ($35M) led by deep-tech investors Plural, and a recently closed Series B ($95M), Relay is scaling faster than 99% of venture-backed startups. We're assembling the most talent-dense team the logistics industry has ever seen

Relay’s Mission is to free commerce from friction. Today, high delivery costs act as a hidden tax on e-commerce, quietly shaping what can be sold online and limiting who can participate. We envision a world where more goods move more freely between more people, making the online shopping experience seamless and accessible to everyone.

THE TEAM
• ~160 people, around half in engineering, product and data
• 45+ advanced degrees across computer science, mathematics and operations research
• Thousands of data points captured, calculated, analysed and predicted for every single parcel we handle
• An intellectually vibrant culture of first‑principles thinking, tight feedback loops and relentless experimentation

Relay is a marketplace for delivery work. Every day, 400,000 parcels move through our network, carried by couriers who choose when and how they work, across four marketplaces, each with its own app and its own economics.

When we offer a courier work, the price is part of the offer. Price it too low and routes go unserved; price it too high and the network pays for capacity it didn't need. Science at Relay brings operational research, machine learning, causal inference and economics together to optimise the whole network rather than one decision at a time. Economics decides what the work is worth.

Marketplace Highlights

• Four marketplaces, four apps, each with its own economics.

• A live, two-sided marketplace where couriers choose their work, with every decision logged across millions of parcels.

• Interference between couriers, heterogeneous effects and long-run behaviour are the norm, not the exception.

• Prices sit inside recommendations and network-wide optimisation, so economics, personalisation and operational research have to work as one.

The Opportunity

As a Principal Economist at Relay, you'll:

• Own courier pricing and pay policy: how work is priced, how couriers are paid, and how incentives are set across our marketplaces.

• Apply economic theory to a live marketplace: model supply, demand and courier behaviour, and design pricing and incentive mechanisms that hold up in the real network.

• Measure what every pricing and pay change did, working with our Applied Scientists and experimenting across a live two-sided marketplace.

• Partner with Operational Research and Recommender Systems so price is set as part of the recommendation, not after it.

• Advise leadership on pricing and incentives, and help build Relay's research culture and voice in the tech community.

We're looking for candidates who…

• Have a PhD in economics, and have applied it in a tech marketplace such as ride-hailing, delivery or a gig platform.

• Have advised leadership on pricing or incentive decisions, and seen those decisions through to what happened next.

• Are deeply skilled in econometrics and causal inference, and know how to apply economic theory to a real marketplace, not just a model of one.

• Are hands-on: you write the code, run the analysis and build the models yourself.

• Explain economics clearly to operations, product and leadership, without the jargon.

Who Thrives at Relay?

• Aim with Precision: You define problems clearly and measure your impact meticulously.

• Play to Win: You chase bold bets, tackle the hard stuff, and view constraints as fuel, not friction.

• 1% Better Every Day: You believe that small, consistent improvements lead to exponential growth. You move quickly, deliver results, and learn from every experience.

• All In, All the Time: You show up and step up. You take ownership from start to finish and do what it takes to deliver when it counts.

• People-Powered Greatness: You invest in your teammates. You give and receive feedback with care and candour. You build trust through high standards and shared success.

• Grow the Whole Pie: You seek out win-win solutions for merchants, couriers, and our customers, because when they thrive, so do we.
  
  If these resonate, and you combine strong technical fundamentals with entrepreneurial drive, let’s connect.

Relay is an equal-opportunity employer committed to diversity, inclusion, and fostering a workplace where everyone thrives.