Senior Software Development Engineer, Loyalty - Back End

Expedia•San Jose, CA

60d•Hybrid

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. The Loyalty Engineering organization powers continuous engagement, re-engagement, and re-acquisition for travelers worldwide. We build the systems that create a durable growth flywheel for Expedia, deepening traveler relationships while driving measurable business impact across brands and markets. In this role, you will contribute to the technical strategy and architecture for the AI-empowered Loyalty charter — developing and delivering next-generation, intelligent engagement experiences powered by modern AI and agentic systems. You will work with multiple distributed engineering teams, partnering closely with Product, Data Science, and platform leaders to build scalable, reliable, and innovative solutions.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or a related technical field; or Equivalent related professional experience.
8+ years of relevant professional experience.
Proven ownership of one or more backend services, including responsibility for design, implementation, quality, deployment, and operational health.
Strong proficiency in backend programming, API design, data modeling, and working with relational or NoSQL databases in distributed systems.
Familiarity with AI-driven systems, tools, or workflows and applying AI/ML concepts to real world products.

Nice To Haves

Experience designing and evolving large‑scale, customer‑facing platforms using Java, including event‑driven and microservice‑based architectures, with deep expertise in RESTful API design, data modeling, security, and service reuse across domains.
Experience designing and evolving high-scale, low-latency backend systems for customer-facing products in a complex ecosystem such as Loyalty or transactional platforms.
Track record of leading technical design for multi-service solutions, including integration patterns, data contracts, and performance optimization across systems.
Strong focus on reliability and operational excellence, including observability, incident management, and continuous improvement of service health.
Hands-on experience integrating or operating AI/ML‑enabled components in backend services, such as recommendation engines, scoring services, or intelligent decision flows, and tailoring their use to Loyalty scenarios.
Hands‑on experience integrating and operating AI/ML‑enabled capabilities in production, including use of developer AI tools such as Claude, GitHub Copilot, and Cursor to improve productivity, code quality, personalization, and automation outcomes.
Safely integrates and operates AI/ML‑enabled solutions within backend Loyalty platforms, including evaluating model behavior, managing rollouts, and iterating based on data-driven insights.
Experience in ad-tech and user targeting is a plus.

Responsibilities

Design, build, and evolve reliable, scalable backend services and APIs that power key Loyalty experiences across brands and platforms.
Lead end-to-end solution design, including low-level system design, API contracts, and data models, ensuring performance, security, and maintainability.
Own complex services through the full software development lifecycle, from technical design and implementation to deployment, monitoring, and incident resolution.
Collaborate with product, architecture, and cross-functional engineering teams to translate requirements into technical solutions that meet business and customer outcomes.
Safely integrate and operate AI/ML‑enabled solutions that improve outcomes, including personalization, decisioning, or optimization within Loyalty systems.
Apply backend engineering expertise across multiple domains within Loyalty, contributing to shared platforms, reusable components, and standardized engineering practices.