Applied AI Scientist III

Expedia, Inc.; City Of London; On-site; GBP 75,000 - 100,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading online travel company seeks a Senior AI Specialist to drive innovation in SEM and Metasearch. The role involves designing and deploying AI solutions for campaign optimization and collaborating across teams to enhance marketing strategies. Ideal candidates should have a strong background in AI/ML, proven experience in marketing, and proficiency in programming languages like Python. This position offers opportunities to influence and improve business outcomes through advanced technology.

Benefits

Inclusive work environment

Recognition as a Best Place to Work on Glassdoor

Support for employees with disabilities

Qualifications

• Strong proficiency in Python and SQL.
• Experience with search marketing and bidding optimization is a plus.
• Able to design, monitor and maintain autonomous AI systems.

Responsibilities

• Lead AI innovation in SEM and Metasearch workflows.
• Design and deploy AI solutions for campaign optimization.
• Collaborate with teams to align AI innovations with business goals.

Skills

Generative AI methods

Deep learning

Natural language processing

Statistical testing methods

Python (PyTorch, TensorFlow)

Cloud ML orchestration (AWS, Databricks)

Education

Bachelor’s or Master’s in Computer Science, Data Science, AI/ML

PhD preferred

Job description

What You’ll Do

• Lead AI innovation by identifying and testing opportunities to integrate advanced generative AI and other ML methods, including agent-based systems, into SEM and Metasearch workflows
• Design, develop and deploy AI solutions to improve bidding, capital allocation, audience targeting, creative optimisation and campaign segmentation through structured test-and-learn approaches
• Develop and implement prompt engineering, tool integrations and orchestration strategies for autonomous AI workflows
• Rapidly prototype proof-of-concepts to assess value before scaling solutions into production
• Execute A/B and multivariate tests, applying statistical methods such as t-tests, confidence intervals and distributions to ensure results are valid and repeatable, and improving experimental design for marketing applications
• Apply generative AI, reinforcement learning and other ML techniques to improve operational efficiency and campaign outcomes through automation and scalability
• Implement monitoring, observability and guardrails for AI systems to ensure performance, reliability, compliance and safety
• Identify and address algorithm risks or inefficiencies before they impact marketing performance
• Collaborate with Marketing, Engineering, Science and Product teams to align AI innovations with business goals and scale them across brands, products and marketing processes
• Partner with product and engineering teams to design and enhance APIs, dashboards and bidding tools that embed AI capabilities into SEM and Metasearch operations
• Analyse large-scale SEM and Metasearch datasets, identify changes in market dynamics such as seasonality, auction changes and competitor actions, and implement strategies to improve ROI and competitive positioning
• Build pipelines, workflows and tools for continuous learning and improvement from AI-driven initiatives, and troubleshoot issues including data quality problems, pipeline failures and degraded model performance
• Ensure responsible AI practices by addressing bias, fairness, privacy and transparency in AI solutions
• Present recommendations and results to senior leadership in a clear, compelling and business-relevant way

Who You Are

• Bachelor’s or Master’s in Computer Science, Data Science, AI/ML, Statistics or a related quantitative field; PhD preferred
• Hands-on experience with generative AI methods, deep learning, natural language processing or reinforcement learning
• Proven track record applying AI and ML to solve complex business problems, ideally in marketing, advertising or e-commerce
• Strong proficiency in Python (PyTorch, TensorFlow, scikit-learn), SQL and cloud ML orchestration environments such as AWS, Databricks or Flyte
• Experience with search marketing, ad auctions, bidding optimisation or customer segmentation is a plus
• Skilled in rapid prototyping, hypothesis testing and iteration toward production-ready solutions
• Experience applying statistical testing methods to marketing experiments, including A/B testing and test readouts
• Able to design, monitor and maintain autonomous AI systems with appropriate safety and compliance measures
• Able to troubleshoot operational AI issues and work with cross-functional teams to resolve them quickly
• Strong communicator who can translate complex AI concepts into insights for both technical and non-technical audiences
• Self-starter who proactively identifies opportunities to leverage AI for measurable business impact

#LI-MF2

Accommodation requests

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