Expedia Group

Senior Director, ML/AI – Search and Recommendations

Expedia Group

full-time

Posted on:

Location Type: Hybrid

Location: Seattle • California • Washington • United States

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Salary

💰 $296,000 - $414,500 per year

Job Level

Senior

About the role

  • Define and execute the scientific roadmap for the company’s most critical asset, the Search and Recommendation stack
  • Act as the primary counterpart to senior Product and Engineering leadership
  • Own the high-level architectural decision-making for search ranking and recommendations
  • Champion a strategy to move from fragmented models to large-scale Ranking Foundation Models
  • Manage and mentor a large, multi-disciplinary organization of Applied Scientists and ML Leaders
  • Ensure our algorithms optimize for long-term business value while maintaining a healthy ecosystem for our supply partners

Requirements

  • PhD or Master’s in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Statistics, or a related field, or equivalent professional experience
  • 15+ years of experience in Data Science and Machine Learning, with 8+ years of experience managing high-performing science teams and managing managers
  • Deep technical authority in Search and Ranking: Proven experience designing and deploying large-scale Ranking Foundation Models, Representation Learning, and Retrieval systems (e.g., Learning-to-Rank, Two-Tower architectures, Multi-Task Learning)
  • Expertise in Model Distillation: Experience training large-scale 'Teacher' models and applying Knowledge Distillation techniques to create efficient 'Student' models for high-throughput production ranking
  • Architectural Leadership: Experience making build-vs-buy decisions and designing ML systems that handle massive scale and real-time inference requirements
  • Stakeholder Influence: Strong business acumen and ability to influence executive stakeholders; capable of explaining complex architectural trade-offs to non-technical partners.
Benefits
  • full benefits package, including exciting travel perks
  • generous time-off
  • parental leave
  • a flexible work model (with some pretty cool offices)
  • career development resources
  • wellness & travel reimbursement
  • travel discounts
  • International Airlines Travel Agent ( IATAN ) membership
  • medical/dental/vision
  • Employee Assistance Program
Applicant Tracking System Keywords

Tip: use these terms in your resume and cover letter to boost ATS matches.

Hard Skills & Tools
Machine LearningData ScienceSearch RankingRanking Foundation ModelsRepresentation LearningRetrieval SystemsLearning-to-RankTwo-Tower ArchitecturesMulti-Task LearningKnowledge Distillation
Soft Skills
LeadershipMentoringStakeholder InfluenceBusiness AcumenCommunication
Certifications
PhD in Computer ScienceMaster’s in Computer Science