Senior Director ML/AI - Search and 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.

Senior Director ML/AI - Search and Recommendation

Introduction to Team

Expedia Product & Technology builds innovative products services and tools to deliver high-quality experiences for travelers partners and our employees. A singular technology platform powered by data and machine learning provides secure differentiated and personalized experiences for the traveler and our partners that drive loyalty and customer satisfaction.

The AI & ML organization is the engine of our marketplace and Search and Recommendation is its most strategically important component. This role leads the centralized science portfolio that defines how millions of travelers discover the world: directly creating the algorithms that power the core marketplace dynamics across Vrbo Hotels.com and Expedia. We are at a pivotal moment of transformation moving beyond siloed models to build Ranking Foundation Models that capture universal traveler preferences and distill this intelligence across vertical use cases. You will lead the teams responsible for the core ranking algorithms and retrieval systems that serve as the primary interface between traveler intent and our global supply.

In the role you will

• Lead the Strategic Vision: Define and execute the scientific roadmap for the company’s most critical asset the Search and Recommendation stack. Drive the shift from classical ranking to next-generation AI-native discovery experiences using the latest AI breakthroughs.

• Serve as a Key Strategic Partner: Act as the primary counterpart to senior Product and Engineering leadership. You will not just support the roadmap but actively shape it determining how centralized ranking capabilities can unlock new marketplace opportunities and streamline the architecture.

• Make Technical Architecture Decisions: Own the high-level architectural decision-making for search ranking and recommendations. You will decide how to integrate the latest AI (e.g. Vector Search RAG Hybrid Retrieval) into our production stack balancing performance latency cost and scalability.

• Develop Ranking Foundation Models & Distill Intelligence: Champion a strategy to move from fragmented models to large-scale Ranking Foundation Models. Oversee the training of massive multi-objective architectures (e.g. Transformer-based ranking Universal User/Item Representations) and orchestrate the distillation of this core ranking intelligence into efficient vertical-specific models.

• Lead and Scale High-Performing Teams: Manage and mentor a large multi-disciplinary organization of Applied Scientists and ML Leaders. Foster a culture that bridges the gap between state-of-the-art research and high-velocity product deployment.

• Drive Marketplace Health: Ensure our algorithms optimize for long-term business value while maintaining a healthy ecosystem for our supply partners.

Minimum Qualifications

• 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.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience leading ML/AI teams in a two-sided marketplace balancing supply and demand dynamics.

• A track record of successfully migrating legacy search stacks to modern deep-learning or vector-based architectures.

• Proven track record as a recognized industry leader (e.g. conference talks at RecSys/SIGIR/KDD patents or open-source contributions).

• Exceptional organizational leadership skills with a history of attracting top talent and designing effective org structures for hybrid Research/Engineering teams.

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 https://careers.expediggroup.com/life.

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 https://expedia.service-now.com/askeg?id=job_accommodation.

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 https://careers.expediagroup.com/jobs/.

Equal Opportunity

What We Do

Expedia Group powers travel for everyone everywhere through our global platform. Driven by the core belief that travel is a force for good we help people experience the world in new ways and build lasting connections. We provide industry-leading technology solutions to fuel partner growth and success while facilitating memorable experiences for travelers. Expedia Group's family of brands includes: Brand Expedia® Hotels.com® Expedia® Partner Solutions Vrbo® trivago® Orbitz® Travelocity® Hotwire® Wotif® ebookers® CheapTickets® Expedia Group™ Media Solutions Expedia Local Expert® CarRentals.com™ and Expedia Cruises™.

Why Work With Us

As travelers and technologists we are passionate about making travel more seamless accessible and memorable. We embrace different perspectives celebrate new ideas and empower every Expedian to drive meaningful change. The experiences we create bridge divides and broaden horizons – helping create unforgettable memories through travel.

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