---
title: 'Principal Data Scientist, Pricing at UP.Labs'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/principal-data-scientist-pricing-up-labs-los-angeles-0vqhkdebcrx0'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-12'
---

# Principal Data Scientist, Pricing at UP.Labs

- **Company:** UP.Labs
- **Location:** Los Angeles, CA
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Work type:** remote
- **Posted:** 2026-07-29
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-12
- **Apply:** https://jobs.gem.com/up-labs/am9icG9zdDp2CbIWbf1X6c86pWtpOhRr

## Job description

## About the Role

We're partnering with one of the largest freight and logistics companies in North America to reinvent how the trucking industry prices, bids, and captures value. This is a rare chance to work alongside a market leader with unmatched freight data depth, tackling pricing problems that have plagued carriers, brokers, and shippers for decades. As the Principal Data Scientist for this venture, you'll own the modeling and analytical intelligence behind our pricing product - building, validating, and iterating on the ML systems that power how our platform recommends and adapts freight pricing in real time. You'll partner closely with product and engineering, but your core mandate is the science: the models, the experiments, the insights that make the product defensible.

## What You'll Do

- Own the data science function for the venture, with freight pricing and revenue optimization as your primary domain
- Build and iterate on ML models - dynamic spot and contract pricing, lane-level demand forecasting, load acceptance optimization, price elasticity, and market benchmarking
- Design and run pricing experiments to validate model performance and surface actionable insights for product and commercial decisions
- Partner with engineers to move models from prototype into production - providing guidance on deployment, monitoring, and model maintenance
- Validate early business assumptions around freight pricing mechanics and contribute to the venture's monetization strategy with data-driven analysis
- Establish data science best practices and model governance standards for the venture

## What You Bring

- 8+ years of experience in data science and machine learning, with meaningful time spent on pricing, revenue optimization, or demand modeling
- Demonstrated experience building and deploying ML models in production: dynamic pricing, price elasticity, willingness-to-pay, bid optimization, or similar
- Strong ML and quantitative modeling background - whether grounded in data science, operations research, or systems engineering
- Experience applying these skills to pricing, network optimization, supply/demand balancing, or marketplace dynamics in production environments
- Familiarity with freight, logistics, or transportation data is a strong plus - lane economics, spot vs. contract dynamics, fuel surcharges, or carrier capacity signals
- Comfort in ambiguous, early-stage environments where the data is messy, the roadmap is evolving, and you're expected to define the approach
- Experience translating model outputs and tradeoffs into clear language for product, commercial, and executive stakeholders
- Proficiency with standard data science tooling: Python, SQL, and relevant ML libraries

## Nice to Have

- Experience in freight or adjacent industries with similar pricing and network complexity: rideshare, airlines, ecommerce fulfillment, or digital marketplaces.
- Familiarity with A/B testing frameworks for pricing experiments
- Experience with reinforcement learning applied to dynamic pricing or sequential decision problems
- Exposure to network optimization or capacity planning problems in logistics
- Experience working with cloud data infrastructure (AWS, GCP, or Azure) and warehouse tooling (Snowflake, Databricks, dbt)

## About UP.Labs

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: UP.Labs is a venture builder that partners with leading enterprises like Porsche, Alaska Airlines, and J.B. Hunt to co-create vertical AI startups that solve complex operational challenges in physical industries.
- **Entity Type**: Private (venture builder/venture lab)
- **Headquarters**: Santa Monica, California, USA (Hangar 7, 3100 Donald Douglas Loop N, Santa Monica, CA 90405)
- **Founded**: Not publicly disclosed, but has been active since at least 2024
- **Founders**: Not publicly disclosed as a single founder; the entity operates as a venture lab under the UP.Partners umbrella

## Core Business
- Primary industry: Venture building / Corporate venture foundry, focused on transportation, mobility, logistics, aviation, manufacturing, and energy
- Target customers: Large enterprises in physical industries (e.g., Porsche, Alaska Airlines, J.B. Hunt, Wabash National)
- Mission: To transform physical industry by building vertical AI startups that unlock massive operational gains and deliver real enterprise value — described as "the shortest road to a faster, cleaner, safer, and more accessible future"

## Products & Services
UP.Labs does not sell a single product; instead, it launches and incubates startups. Recent and notable portfolio ventures include:

- **AutoUnify**: A developer platform aiming to solve the automotive industry data divide (launched with Porsche, described as "the Plaid of automotive retail") [techcrunch.com](https://techcrunch.com/2025/05/13/up-labs-porsches-newest-startup-wants-to-be-the-plaid-of-automotive-retail/)
- **Odysee**: An AI-enabled startup focused on schedule optimization for airlines (launched with Alaska Airlines) [talkbusiness.net](https://talkbusiness.net/2024/11/04/leaders-highlight-programs-to-help-startups-boost-innovation/)
- **Stealth AI Manufacturing Planning Startup**: Currently being built with Wabash National to modernize transportation manufacturing with AI-powered tools [morningstar.com](https://www.morningstar.com/news/globe-newswire/202504221000/wabash-and-up-labs-to-modernize-transportation-manufacturing-with-ai-powered-tools)
- **Stealth AI Freight Operations Startup**: Being built with J.B. Hunt to create logistics startups [talkbusiness.net](https://talkbusiness.net/2024/11/04/leaders-highlight-programs-to-help-startups-boost-innovation/)
- **Stealth AI Industrial Commerce Startup**: Currently in development

## Market Standing
- **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not disclosed (private entity)
- **Key Metric**: 72 employees as of mid-2025, with 27% year-over-year headcount growth [linkedin.com](https://linkedin.com/company/up-labs)
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: Porsche, Alaska Airlines, J.B. Hunt, Wabash National (corporate partners); operates with UP.Ventures as the capital arm
- **Growth Signals**: 
  - 27% YoY headcount growth (+20 people)
  - 2.5% monthly LinkedIn follower growth, 31.8% yearly
  - Active job postings up 200% monthly and 350% quarterly
  - 8 industry-specific venture labs operating across Los Angeles and Silicon Valley
  - Workforce distributed across 9 countries (US, Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Uruguay, Spain, Philippines, UK, Chile)

## Competitive Advantages
- **Unique venture model**: UP.Labs doesn't just invest — it co-creates startups with enterprise partners who are also the first customers, ensuring immediate market fit and a built-in acquisition path
- **Enterprise access**: Partners like Porsche, Alaska Airlines, and J.B. Hunt provide real-world operational problems, data, and distribution channels
- **Vertical AI focus**: Purpose-built AI solutions for physical industries (logistics, manufacturing, aviation, energy) — a space with high barriers to entry and massive operational impact
- **Talent density**: Attracts proven entrepreneurs, product leaders, and technologists; alumni go to top firms like McKinsey, BCG, Amazon, and Stanford GSB
- **Proven exit model**: Corporate partners acquire matured startups, creating a clear liquidity path

## Strategic Focus
- **Scale the venture lab model**: Expanding from 8 labs across two hubs (LA and Silicon Valley) into more industries and geographies
- **Deepen enterprise partnerships**: Working with the world's leading organizations to compound innovation
- **Build vertical AI startups**: Focus on agentic AI, computer vision, and data intelligence for physical operations
- **Global talent expansion**: Active hiring across LATAM (Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Uruguay) for senior engineering roles, with a focus on building remote-first teams
- **Recent hires**: Appointed elite founders to lead the next wave of enterprise AI startups (announced August 2025) [morningstar.com](https://www.morningstar.com/news/globe-newswire/202508211000/meet-the-builders-up-labs-appoints-elite-founders-to-lead-its-next-wave-of-enterprise-ai-startups)

## Why Work Here
- **Impact at scale**: Engineers work on AI-native startups solving real problems in logistics, aviation, manufacturing, and energy — not just chatbots or CRUD apps
- **Remote-first culture**: Many roles are fully remote, especially for LATAM-based engineers (no relocation required)
- **Global, distributed team**: Workforce spans 9 countries; strong presence in LATAM (Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Uruguay) with dedicated LATAM remote roles
- **Senior-level focus**: Roles are described as "not support roles" but the technical layer behind AI-native companies; 100% retention reported for the initial remote LATAM team [linkedin.com](https://linkedin.com/company/up-labs)
- **Compensation**: USD-denominated salaries for LATAM roles, plus paid time off, hardware setup, and career development paths
- **Engineering culture**: Emphasis on "the best engineering problems in the US right now are inside physical industries" — appeals to builders who want hard technical challenges
- **Hybrid options**: Some roles in Santa Monica (HQ) offer hybrid flexibility; roles like Portfolio Platform Lead and Head of Engineering are hybrid in LA
- **Growth trajectory**: 27% YoY headcount growth, active hiring across engineering, data science, AI/ML, and business roles

## Sources
1. [uplabs.com](https://uplabs.com/subscribe)
2. [jobs.gem.com/up-labs](https://jobs.gem.com/up-labs)
3. [linkedin.com/company/up-labs](https://linkedin.com/company/up-labs)
4. [careers.up.partners](https://careers.up.partners/jobs/up-labs?jobTypes=Engineer)
5. [techcrunch.com](https://techcrunch.com/2025/05/13/up-labs-porsches-newest-startup-wants-to-be-the-plaid-of-automotive-retail/)
6. [talkbusiness.net](https://talkbusiness.net/2024/11/04/leaders-highlight-programs-to-help-startups-boost-innovation/)
7. [morningstar.com](https://www.morningstar.com/news/globe-newswire/202508211000/meet-the-builders-up-labs-appoints-elite-founders-to-lead-its-next-wave-of-enterprise-ai-startups)
8. [morningstar.com](https://www.morningstar.com/news/globe-newswire/202504221000/wabash-and-up-labs-to-modernize-transportation-manufacturing-with-ai-powered-tools)

## Other roles at UP.Labs

- [Engineering Manager - Stealth Aviation Safety Intelligence Startup](https://feeny.ai/job/engineering-manager-stealth-aviation-safety-intelligence-startup-up-labs-remote-ek4fdmdm7s3m)
- [Head of Infrastructure Engineering - Stealth Aviation Safety Intelligence Startup](https://feeny.ai/job/head-of-infrastructure-engineering-stealth-aviation-safety-intelligence-startup-ez2g2hjcgenz)
- [HR Generalist (Part-Time)](https://feeny.ai/job/hr-generalist-part-time-up-labs-los-angeles-hhvpw26drf37) — Los Angeles, CA
- [Accounting Manager](https://feeny.ai/job/accounting-manager-up-labs-los-angeles-2dh9x3s9v2mt) — Los Angeles, CA
- [Lead Forward Deployed Engineer, Hospitality](https://feeny.ai/job/lead-forward-deployed-engineer-hospitality-up-labs-remote-q26zpzbnxyw3)
- [Principal AI Engineer (LATAM Remote)](https://feeny.ai/job/principal-ai-engineer-latam-remote-up-labs-remote-d3z9w347tspn)
- [Sr Data Engineer (LATAM Remote)](https://feeny.ai/job/sr-data-engineer-latam-remote-up-labs-remote-rjwqs2zcbnab)
- [Portfolio Ops Manager](https://feeny.ai/job/portfolio-ops-manager-up-labs-los-angeles-psg2hh8yxkbs) — Los Angeles, CA
- [Chief Revenue Officer - Platform Team](https://feeny.ai/job/chief-revenue-officer-platform-team-up-labs-los-angeles-pe6nzzdpk5be) — Los Angeles, CA
- [Head of Engineering - Stealth AI Industrial Commerce Startup](https://feeny.ai/job/head-of-engineering-stealth-ai-industrial-commerce-startup-up-labs-remote-fs0xxqk16dwa)