Senior Manager, Machine Learning Science

Expedia • Seattle, WA

37d • $173,000 - $242,500

About The Position

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. Senior Manager, Machine Learning Science- Post Booking Introduction to the Team: Are you passionate about using machine learning to improve Customer Experience? Would you like to work in the fast-paced, competitive, customer-focused, and data-rich world of online travel? As a Senior Manager of Machine Learning Science, you will be an established people leader, guiding a talented team of 5-10 data scientists. Your mission will be to develop state-of-the-art machine learning algorithms that power and enhance the customer experience across highly complex post-booking recommendations, customer service, and trip management use cases. You will collaborate with senior management, product, and engineering partners to deliver a high-impact portfolio of work while fostering a high-performing, well-managed, and talented team. You will tackle substantial technical challenges, from inference problems arising from long-tail traveler data to multi-objective optimization problems in the highly dynamic, operationally complex environment of customer service. Your passion for the craft of statistics, machine learning, and causal inference will unlock tangible growth for our business by exploiting these rich data sets and building effective solutions for travelers and our partners. We are looking for a leader to shape the next generation of intelligence for Expedia Group's Post-Booking organization. As a Senior Manager of Machine Learning Science, you will guide a talented team of scientists responsible for the algorithms at the core of our post-booking business, helping to anticipate traveler needs, personalize dynamic add-ons and upsells, and improve servicing experiences. You will partner with senior leaders across product and engineering to define a high-impact vision, tackling fundamental challenges in predictive modeling and Generative AI to improve customer satisfaction and loyalty, lower cost-to-serve, and make travel more seamless for millions of customers and partners worldwide. In this role, you will:

Requirements

• You have 5+ years of industry experience applying machine learning to solve real-world problems.
• You have 2+ years of direct people management experience with a proven track record of hiring, mentoring, and developing a high-performing team of scientists or engineers.
• You have deep expertise in machine learning theory, statistical methods, and the scientific principles of measurement necessary to guide the team's technical direction and ensure scientific rigor.
• You have a comprehensive understanding of the end-to-end ML lifecycle, from ideation and research to deployment and monitoring.
• You have hands-on fluency in Python and its data science ecosystem (e.g., PySpark, scikit-learn), and SQL.
• Technical depth to unblock your team and contribute to architectural decisions.

Nice To Haves

• PhD or MS in a quantitative field (e.g., Computer Science, Economics, Statistics, Physics).
• You champion software engineering best practices (e.g., version control, code reviews) within the team.
• A passion for fostering healthy team culture that brings a balanced approach to individual team member career growth and collective goal of delivering impactful work.
• Advanced domain knowledge in customer service, recommendation systems, operational applications of ML, and/or e-commerce
• Experience building and deploying models using GenAI/LLM technologies

Responsibilities

• Lead, Mentor, and Develop: Mentor and grow a team of 5-10 machine learning scientists, fostering a culture of innovation, collaboration and scientific rigor.
• Strategic Planning & Delivery: Define and manage the team's strategic roadmap, setting goals (OKRs) and aligning projects with broader business objectives in the online travel domain. Translate this roadmap into effective delivery of ML-drive features and products.
• Influence and Collaborate: Act as a key scientific leader, partnering with product, engineering, and business executives to align strategy and communicate complex technical concepts to a diverse audience.

Benefits

• 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
• medical/dental/vision
• paid time off
• Employee Assistance Program
• wellness & travel reimbursement
• travel discounts
• International Airlines Travel Agent (IATAN) membership

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Manager
• Industry: Administrative and Support Services
• Education Level: Ph.D. or professional degree