Senior ML Science Leader—Travel Ranking & Recommendations

At Expedia Group, we help travelers explore the world, one journey at a time. As a global travel company powered by passionate people, trusted partnerships, and leading technology, we connect travelers, partners, and advertisers through our consumer brands, B2B network, and travel advertising business. Here, you’ll do meaningful work that helps millions of people discover, book, and experience travel with more ease, confidence, and joy. Our five Behaviors-Traveler First, Think Big, Operate with Excellence, Ownership Mindset, and Succeed Together-help foster a supportive environment where people can grow their careers and have the flexibility, benefits, and support to do their best work. Join us and build for travelers everywhere. Introduction to the team TheWhole Trip AIteam at Expedia Group enables unforgettable travel experiences. The team’s responsibilities coversearchranking& recommendations for Brand Expedia across corelines of businessincludingFlights, Cars, Packages, and Activities. Additionally, we’re responsible for optimizing our interactions with travelers across this domain, including cache optimization, pricing forecasting, and next-best action modeling. Ourapproaches includebothtraditional MLas well asGenAI-based solutions.We work closely with other teams in the Data & AI organization to continually improve our tools, processes, and platforms for building and deploying industry leadingAIsolutions. As a Senior Manager, Machine Learning Science you and your team will own our Bundled Products ranking, recommendations, and intent modeling. You will work closely with stakeholders in Cars, Activities, Attach & Packages to help travelers book multi-item trips with Expedia by surfacing relevant offerings in the right places in the experience. Your team owns multiple high traffic, live models and with significant scope for further growth. You will work with a dynamic group ofproduct managers,engineers, and scientiststo achieve Expedia’s business goals. In this role, you will: Enable a team to develop industry-leading ranking & recommendation models for the travel industry to enable travelers to have memorable travel experiences Lead and grow a team of machine learning scientists to deliver production-grade ML solutions that solve complex business problems and improve traveler and partner experiences across multiple product domains Define and drive the end-to-end machine learning roadmap for your area, from problem formulation and data strategy through model design, evaluation, and productionization in close partnership with engineering and product Set and enforce best practices for experimental design, A/B testing, and causal inference to ensure ML-driven decisions are statistically robust, interpretable, and aligned to business and customer outcomes Partner with data engineering and software engineering teams to ensure ML models are scalable, resilient, observable, and well-integrated into services, APIs, and data pipelines in production Mentor, coach, and develop ML scientists through technical guidance, peer review, and career development, fostering a culture of scientific rigor, continuous learning, and high impact delivery Apply familiarity with AI-driven systems, tools, or workflows and AI/ML concepts to real world products, safely integrating and operating AI/ML‑enabled solutions that improve outcomes across multiple lines of business Minimum Qualifications: Bachelor’s Degree or Equivalent Level; Technical Degree Preferred 8+ years of relevant professional experience and 3+ years of people management experience Strong expertise in modern machine learning methods in ranking and recommendation with solid programming skills and collaboration experience with engineering teams on system, API, and data design Substantial professional experience leading end-to-end machine learning initiatives, including problem definition, data preparation, feature engineering, model development, offline evaluation, experimentation, and integration into production systems Proven experience managing or technically leading machine learning scientists or applied researchers, with ownership spanning multiple services, products, or problem spaces Preferred Qualifications: Experience with natural language search and refinement of recommendations using natural language Experience with multi-modal recommendations across images, structured metadata, and unstructured text Demonstrated track record delivering large-scale machine learning solutions in high-traffic, data-rich environments, including setting technical direction and architecture for multi-service or multi-domain ML systems Experience designing and operationalizing experimentation platforms, advanced measurement frameworks, or causal inference methodologies to drive data-informed decision making at scale Leadership experience in raising the technical bar for ML teams through publication-quality analyses, reusable modeling frameworks, rigorous data and model quality practices, and effective documentation Proven ability to advance a team’s capabilities with emerging AI/ML techniques and tooling, including GenAI & agentic techniques, to unlock new product experiences and operational efficiencies The total cash range for this position in Seattle is $173,000.00 to $242,500.00. Employees in this role have the potential to increase their pay up to $277,000.00, which is the top of the range, based on ongoing, demonstrated, and sustained performance in the role. Starting pay for this role will vary based on multiple factors, including location, available budget, and an individual’s knowledge, skills, and experience. Pay ranges may be modified in the future. Benefits and perks Expedia Group offers benefits and perks designed to support employees and their families, including medical, dental, and vision coverage, paid time off, an Employee Assistance Program, wellness and travel reimbursement, travel discounts, and International Airlines Travel Agent Network (IATAN) membership. Learn more about life at Expedia Group at Accommodation requests Expedia Group is committed to providing an inclusive and accessible recruiting experience. If you need an accommodation or adjustment due to a disability during the application or recruiting process, please submit a request at About Expedia Group Expedia Group includes three flagship consumer brands – Expedia, Hotels.com, and Vrbo – along with a leading B2B travel business and travel advertising offerings. Across our brands and business, we help travelers explore the world with confidence and ease. Important notice Employment opportunities and job offers at Expedia Group will always come from Expedia Group’s Talent Acquisition and hiring teams. Never share sensitive personal information unless you are confident of the recipient. Expedia Group does not extend job offers via email or messaging tools to individuals with whom we have not made prior contact. Our email domain is @expediagroup.com. The official place to find and apply for roles is Equal Opportunity Expedia is committed to creating an inclusive work environment with a diverse workforce. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, disability, age, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law. This employer participates in E-Verify. The employer will provide the Social Security Administration (SSA) and, if necessary, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) with information from each new employee’s I-9 to confirm work authorization. Company: Expedia Group Qualifications: Language requirements: Specific requirements: Educational level: Level of experience (years): Senior (5+ years of experience) Tagged as: Industry , Machine Learning , NLP , United States #J-18808-Ljbffr NLP PEOPLE