Your success is a train ride away!

As we move America’s workforce toward the future, Amtrak connects businesses and communities across the country. We employ more than 20,000 diverse, energetic professionals in a variety of career fields throughout the United States. The safety of our passengers, our employees, the public and our operating environment is our priority, and the success of our railroad is due to our employees.

Are you ready to join our team?

Our values of ‘Do the Right Thing, Excel Together and Put Customers First’ are at the heart of what matters most to us, and our Core Capabilities, ‘Building Trust, Accountability, Effective Communication, Customer Focus, and Proactive Safety & Security’ are what every employee needs to know and do to be most impactful at Amtrak. By living the Amtrak values, focusing on our capabilities, and actively embracing and fostering diverse ideas, backgrounds, and perspectives, together we will honor our past and make Amtrak a company of the future.

SUMMARY OF DUTIES:

The Operations Research (OR) Group at Amtrak provides advanced analytics, business optimization and consulting services to various internal business lines with the goal of achieving cost savings, revenue enhancements and/or business process improvement. Positioned within the Service Delivery and Operations organization, this department functions as an internal consulting group providing analytical and decision support services to management and decision makers at different levels and is responsible for demonstrating Amtrak’s values, core competencies and leadership philosophy while providing customers with excellent service and meeting performance targets that are driven by and aligned with the Strategic Plan goals in the following aspects: Safety and Security, Customer Focus, and Financial Excellence.

The OR staff maintain matrix management relationships with other functional and technical groups within the company to ensure compliance with standards and policies established by Amtrak and regulatory authorities. Such matrix relationships include but are not limited to teams responsible for fleet performance, crew management, equipment planning, marketing and sales, revenue management, human capital, finance, technology, and more.

ESSENTIAL FUNCTIONS:

• Initiates, develops, and maintains the data analysis, simulation, and optimization toolbox for Operational Excellence initiatives.
• Interfaces and collaborates with other internal teams and business leaders to understand the business and technology/data aspects to identify appropriate opportunities and initiate new projects for business improvement using analytics.
• Utilizes analytical techniques including but not limited to mathematical optimization, simulation, data mining, forecasting, stochastic modeling, and others as appropriate for the situation.
• Performs all-spectrum data analysis and modeling of business situations, works with business partners and end-users to validate and improve results, and clearly communicates and coordinates the efforts with management and stakeholders.
• Keeps current with research, technology, and industry trend. Actively involved in the industry and brings/applies innovative and suitable solutions to Amtrak.
• Leads several simultaneous analytics and optimization initiatives in cross-functional settings.
• Trains and positively influences others including senior management within Amtrak on analytics tools and techniques.
• The OR Senior Manager may assume supervisory responsibilities for a team of analysts or managers to oversee projects and talent development, and also work hands-on, managing projects in a matrix organizational structure to support the business and departmental goals.

MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS:

• MS in Industrial and Systems Engineering, Transportation Systems, Management Science, Data Science, or related field
• 9 (Nine) plus years of relevant work experience.
• Ability to independently identify analytics opportunities by matching latent business problems with the appropriate analytics methodologies, tools, and workflows, considering time, cost, and other relevant business considerations.
• Ability to convey complex quantitative notions to non-experts and ability to distill crisp models and constraints from ambiguous or conflicting business narratives.
• Ability to concurrently execute and/or manage end-to-end analytics projects, from initial stakeholder engagement to after action review, in a cross functional setting, with demonstrated ability to lead and influence project members that may not directly have a reporting relationship. Ability to effectively lead through complex projects.
• 5 (Five) years of demonstrated experience in formulating mathematical (integer, linear, non-linear and stochastic programing) and heuristic/meta-heuristic optimization models.
• Experience conceptualizing, designing, implementing, verifying, validating and solving models using OR tools (e.g. CPLEX, GUROBI, XPRESS, AMPL, Mosel)
• Statistical fluency and experience performing advanced analytics workflows in languages such as R, Python, SAS or MATLAB, from data wrangling to dashboarding (Tableau, Alteryx, R-Shiny, Plotly), as well as good knowledge of relational databases (SQL)
• Proficiency in at least one high-level object-oriented programing language (Java, C++, Python, Julia, Scala, etc.)
• Awareness of digital transformation trends and technologies, including AI, Machine Learning, IoT, etc.
• Effective interpersonal communication skills including writing, presentation, meeting, and interview facilitation.
• Demonstrated experience in successfully collaborating with a cross-section of departments and customers.
• Ability to effectively facilitate change including development of innovative approaches designed to improve bottom line.
• Any suitable combination of education, training and experience is acceptable.

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS:

• PhD in Industrial and Systems Engineering, Transportation Systems, Management Science, Data Science, or related field.
• Prefers experience in railroads, airlines or the general transportation/travel industry.
• 3 (Three) plus years of experience designing, implementing, and exploiting discrete event and/or agent-based simulation models with tools such as ARENA, ANYLOGIC, SIMIO, MESA, FLEXIM, etc.

WORK ENVIRONMENT:

• Posting Location(s): District of Columbia, Headquarters Office
• Relocation Offered: Yes
• Travel Requirements: Up to 25%

COMMUNICATIONS AND INTERPERSONAL SKILLS:

• Must have excellent oral and written communication skills.

The salary/hourly range is $128,660 - $166,750, Pay is based on several factors including but not limited to education, work experience, certifications, internal equity, etc. Depending on an employee’s assigned worksite or location, Amtrak may consider a geo-pay differential to be applied to the employee’s base salary. Amtrak may offer additional incentive and pay programs to recognize and reward our employees, including a short-term incentive bonus based upon factors such as individual and company performance that is commensurate with the level of the position and/or long-term incentive plan compensation. In addition to your salary, Amtrak offers a comprehensive benefit package that includes health, dental, and vision plans; health savings accounts; wellness programs; flexible spending accounts; 401K retirement plan with employer match; life insurance; short and long term disability insurance; paid time off; back-up care; adoption assistance; surrogacy assistance; reimbursement of education expenses; Public Service Loan Forgiveness eligibility; Railroad Retirement sickness and retirement benefits; and rail pass privileges. Learn more about our benefits offerings here.

Requisition ID:158100
Posting Location(s):District of Columbia
Job Family/Function:Research & Strategy; Transportation
Relocation Offered:Yes
Travel Requirements:Up to 25%

Amtrak employees power our progress through their performance.

We want your work at Amtrak to be more than a job – we want it to be a fulfilling experience where you find challenging and rewarding opportunities, respect among colleagues, competitive pay, benefits that protect you and your family and a high performance culture that recognizes and values your contributions and helps you reach your career goals.

All positions require pre-employment background check verification, a pre-employment drug screen and proof of full vaccination against COVID -19. Amtrak is committed to a safe workplace free of drugs and alcohol and performs pre-employment substance abuse testing. Marijuana, notwithstanding any statute, ordinance, regulation, or other law that legalizes or decriminalizes the use or possession of marijuana, whether for medical, recreational, or other use. Candidates who engage in the usage of marijuana will not be qualified for hire. Successful applicants for employment with Amtrak must be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 by the date of hire as a condition of employment, subject to requests for accommodation. Fully vaccinated means 14 days have elapsed since receiving the second dose of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine or 14 days since receiving the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.

In accordance with DOT regulations (49 CFR § 40.25), Amtrak is required to obtain prior drug and alcohol testing records for applicants/employees intending to perform safety-sensitive duties for covered Department of Transportation positions. If an applicant/employee refuses to provide written consent for Amtrak to obtain these records, the individual will not be permitted to perform safety-sensitive functions.

In accordance with federal law governing security checks of covered individuals for public transportation ( Title 6 U.S.C. § 1143), Amtrak is required to screen applicants for any permanent or interim disqualifying criminal offenses.

Note that any education requirement listed above may be deemed satisfied if you have an equivalent combination of education, training and experience.

Amtrak is an EOE/Affirmative Action Minority/Female employer, and we welcome all to apply. We consider candidates regardless of race/color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth and related conditions), national origin/ethnicity, age, disability (intellectual, mental and physical), veteran status, marital status, ancestry, sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression, genetic information, citizenship or any other personal characteristics protected by law.

POSTING NOTES: Research & Strategy; Transportation || Railroad Operations; Corporate Jobs