AI Operations Manager - AI Builder

Expedia; Washington; On-site; USD 150,000 - 210,000; Full time

Job summary

Expedia Group is seeking a seasoned professional to lead AI Operations within Traveler and Marketplace Operations. You will shape the path for AI-assisted customer service tooling, define guardrails, and partner with Product & Technology to ensure reliable, scalable solutions that impact traveler experiences.

Join a cross-functional team responsible for turning AI-powered insights into practical tools for operations, while maintaining rigorous governance and measurable impact across the business.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in business, analytics, computer science, or related field; or equivalent professional experience.
• 5+ years of experience in contact center or service operations, business operations, or similar role with ability to contextualize data.
• Hands-on ability to build: write own database queries and read/modify Python.
• Track record of turning ideas into working prototypes with measurable impact.
• Experience defining measurement with success metrics, guardrails, and instrumentation.
• Excellent qualitative and quantitative analytical skills and clear, concise communication.

Responsibilities

• Build and ship tools end to end, including AI-powered analysis and data pipelines.
• Prototype using large language model APIs and AI development tools.
• Translate open-ended operational problems into clearly scoped work with data sources and safeguards.
• Represent operations in cross-functional AI programs and define requirements and guardrails.
• Produce analyses and recommendations for senior leaders with risk/opportunity insight.
• Own operating rhythm: agendas, decisions, follow-ups across platform, data, and security teams.
• Guide and review work of partner-based AI builders for quality and safe use of AI development.
• Help operations teams adopt tools and build trust to scale prototype into day-to-day work.

Skills

Python

SQL

Data analysis

Communication

Education

Bachelor's degree or equivalent

Tools

Language model APIs

AI development tools

Job description

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.

Introduction to the Team

Expedia Group powers travel for everyone, everywhere. AI now answers travelers' calls, drafts replies for human agents to review and send, and resolves routine requests without a human agent needing to step in. How AI will transform the customer service experience is a journey we are on, and the path will shift and iterate as we learn.

In Traveler and Marketplace Operations, AI Operations is responsible for shaping that path, and determining what it looks like day to day for the Service Operation. In partnership with our Product & Technology teams, we define what good looks like when AI handles a traveler contact, design the handoffs between automated systems and people, and build the tooling operations leaders use to see what is happening in their business. We also build directly: tools created inside Operations score more than 580,000 properties for quality risk on production infrastructure and surface roughly 100 places a day where the traveler experience broke down, drawn from real conversations and cases.

This is a broad, cross-functional role that reaches across workstreams, from ones you drive yourself to ones where you are one voice among many. Some weeks you are in the code, shipping a tool. Others you are in a leadership forum representing operations, closing an open decision, or writing the brief that unblocks a workstream. It suits someone who works best when given a goal rather than a task list.

In this Role, you will

• Build and ship tools end to end, including applications, artificial intelligence powered analysis, and data pipelines, giving operations leaders a complete picture of quality and traveler experience instead of a small weekly sample
• Prototype quickly and hands-on using large language model application programming interfaces, AI-assisted development tools, and internal data platforms, proving value before larger engineering investment is committed
• Translate open-ended operational problems, such as reducing repeat contacts after a cancellation, into clearly scoped work with defined data sources, safeguards, and success criteria
• Represent the operations point of view in cross-functional AI programs, turning what agents and travelers actually experience into requirements, guardrails, and measures of accuracy
• Produce analysis and recommendations that senior leaders can act on, proactively surfacing risks and opportunities across the work and advising on feasibility, effort, and sequencing
• Own the operating rhythm for this work, including preparing agendas, facilitating discussion, capturing decisions and actions, and following issues through to closure across platform, data, and security teams
• Guide and review the work of a small group of partner-based AI builders, setting the standard for quality, testing, and safe use of artificial intelligence assisted development, so work ships consistently
• Help operations teams adopt these tools, building the trust and fluency that turns a working prototype into how the work actually gets done

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in business, analytics, computer science, or a related field; or Equivalent related professional experience
• 5+ years of experience in contact center or service operations, business operations, or a comparable strategic, analytical, and operational role, with the ability to put any data point in its operational context
• Hands-on ability to build: you write your own database queries, and you can read, modify, and review Python well enough to understand what you are shipping. Professional experience as a software developer is not required, and we welcome people who have learned to build with artificial intelligence assisted tools
• A track record of taking ideas from concept to working prototype to something people actually use, with clear impact on operational or business outcomes
• Experience defining measurement: you design how you will know whether something worked, including success metrics, guardrails, and instrumentation, rather than only reporting on results afterward
• Excellent qualitative and quantitative analytical skills, and proficient communication skills that synthesize complex detail into precise, accessible insight for a senior audience
• Demonstrated ab