Optimization Engineer – Sequencing/Scheduling

🔍 Freelance Opportunity | Optimization Engineer – Sequencing/Scheduling (Short-Term Contract)

We're looking for a freelance expert to work with us on a sequencing optimization problem. Short-term engagement (a few weeks) with a focused, well-defined scope.

📌 What you'll work on Extend and improve an existing local search / metaheuristic solution for a scheduling problem. This involves optimizing shift assignments and sequencing under a set of operational and contractual constraints, with the goal of producing high-quality, feasible schedules efficiently. Impact guaranteed.

🛠 What we're looking for • Proven experience with combinatorial optimization • Strong expertise of metaheuristics: local search, simulated annealing, tabu search, ... • Proficiency in Scala and/or Java and/or strongly-typed languages • Ability to understand and model real-world constraints (availability, fairness, legal rules, etc.) • Clear communicator who can understand customer challenges and document their approach and deliver simple, clean code • Experience comparing and tuning multiple metaheuristic strategies

✅ Nice to have • Prior work on sequencing planning • Knowledge of constraint-based local search

📦 Deliverables • Clear, efficient model and search using local search identifying very good solutions • Performance improvement of the optimization solver (which already achieves high quality results on the first benchmark) • Clear comparisons of the different search strategies • Robust end-to-end pipeline, from data reading to result checking • Brief technical documentation of the approach and key design decisions

⏱ Duration: ~6–10 weeks | Remote | Flexible hours

Interested? Send a message with a short description of a relevant optimization project you've worked on, and your availability. Applications with no relevant experience in scheduling or combinatorial optimization will not be considered.