Director, Machine Learning Science - Recommendations & Relevance

Expedia Group brands power global travel for everyone, everywhere. We design cutting-edge tech to make travel smoother and more memorable, and we create groundbreaking solutions for our partners. Our diverse, vibrant, and welcoming community is essential in driving our success.

Why Join Us?

To shape the future of travel, people must come first. Guided by our Values and Leadership Agreements, we foster an open culture where everyone belongs, differences are celebrated and know that when one of us wins, we all win.

We provide a full benefits package, including exciting travel perks, generous time-off, parental leave, a flexible work model (with some pretty cool offices), and career development resources, all to fuel our employees' passion for travel and ensure a rewarding career journey. We’re building a more open world. Join us.

Introduction to the team

Private Label Solutions (PLS) is the B2B powerhouse within Expedia Group, delivering cutting-edge travel technology and distribution solutions to a diverse global partner network. Our partners span financial institutions, corporate travel managers, offline travel agencies, and global travel suppliers—including major airlines.
 

We are seeking a visionary Director of Machine Learning Science to lead our Recommendations and Relevance team within Private Label Solutions (PLS), Expedia Group's Business-to-business (B2B) division. As a global leader in B2B travel technology, PLS serves thousands of partners across diverse markets and travel segments. This role will tackle the unique challenge of recommending optimal travel products for our partners' diverse traveler base.
 

In this pivotal role, you'll spearhead the creation and evolution of cutting-edge Machine Learning and AI solutions, enhancing our partners' user experiences and optimising their product offerings. As we refine our existing capabilities and ambitiously expand into new business areas, you'll have a unique opportunity to define the future of ML at PLS. We're looking for a leader who thrives on large-scale challenges, can guide a talented full-stack ML team, coach people managers within their organisation, and is committed to delivering exceptional products. Your work will be instrumental in driving growth for our partners, PLS, and Expedia Group as a whole.
 

In this role you will:

• Lead and inspire a cross functional, full stack team of Machine Learning Scientists and Machine Learning Engineers fostering personal growth and creating accountability.
• Develop and execute a comprehensive strategy for applying advanced ML techniques to the recommendations and relevance space that is aligned with business strategy.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to identify high-impact opportunities for enhancing partner recommendations and relevance using AI & ML technologies.
• Work with your peers to identify and develop common capabilities that can improve efficiency across domains.
• Oversee the development, maintenance and operation of scalable ML infrastructure and pipelines.
• Stay at the forefront of relevant advancements in machine learning and drive innovation by encouraging your team to explore and implementing novel approaches.
• Effectively communicate complex technical concepts and project outcomes to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Establish best-in-class development practices, guidelines, and processes within your team.

Experience and Qualifications:

• 10+ years for Master's (7+ years for PhD) experience in applied machine learning with at least 4 years in a leadership/management role
• Ph.D. or master’s degree in computer science, Machine Learning, Information Retrieval, Mathematics/Statistics or another related field of science.
• Depth of expertise and experience in developing and deploying to production machine learning models for recommendations, personalisation, or search relevance.
• Comprehensive knowledge of machine learning algorithms, particularly in ranking and recommendation systems, coupled with the agility to rapidly grasp and apply emerging techniques.
• Proven track record of leading and mentoring high-performing technical teams
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills, with the ability to collaborate effectively across departments
• Strong project management and organisational skills
• Proficiency in programming languages such as Python, Java, or Scala, and experience with ML frameworks like TensorFlow, PyTorch, or scikit-learn
• Experience with large-scale distributed systems and big data technologies (e.g., Spark, Hadoop, Kafka)

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Accommodation requests

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We are proud to be named as a Best Place to Work on Glassdoor in 2024 and be recognized for award-winning culture by organizations like Forbes, TIME, Disability:IN, and others.

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, religion, gender, sexual orientation, national origin, disability or age.