Lead AI Foundations Engineer — Scalable AI Systems

Expedia, Inc.; Seattle (WA); Hybride; USD 185 000 - 258 000; Plein temps

Avantages offerts par ce poste

Medical/Dental/Vision coverage

Paid time off

Employee Assistance Program

Wellness & travel reimbursement

Travel discounts

IATAN membership

Résumé du poste

Expedia Group is seeking a senior software professional to design, build, and evolve scalable services powering agentic AI capabilities. You will lead system design, API design, and data modeling for distributed platforms, safely integrating AI/ML solutions with observability, security, and compliance.

Collaborate across product, data, and platform teams to deliver high-impact features while mentoring engineers in modern AI practices.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or a related technical field, or equivalent professional experience.
• 6+ years of professional software development with a Master's, or 8+ years with a Bachelor's.
• Proven ownership of the end-to-end lifecycle of one or more services.
• Strong proficiency in Java, Kotlin, or Python and system design, API design, and data modeling.
• Familiarity with AI-driven systems and applying AI/ML concepts to real world products.

Responsabilités

• Design, build, and evolve scalable services powering AI capabilities across our platform.
• Lead system design, API design, and data modeling for distributed services.
• Safely integrate and operate AI/ML-enabled solutions with quality, observability and compliance.
• Partner with product, applied science, data, and platform teams to define technical direction and deliver high-impact features.
• Drive engineering excellence by setting standards for code quality, testing, performance, security, and reliability.
• Mentor engineers in modern software and AI development practices.
• Leverage AI-driven systems to design agentic orchestration, tool interfaces, and safeguards.

Connaissances

Programming (Java/Kotlin/Python)

System design (LLD)

API design

Data modeling

AI familiarity

End-to-end ownership

Formation

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or related field

Master's degree in Computer Science (optional)

Description du poste

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 Team

Our Technology Team partners with teams across Expedia Group to create 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 that drive loyalty and traveler satisfaction.

This Senior Software Developer role is part of the AI Foundations team which builds and scales reusable AI agents and an underlying agentic platform that automate high-volume engineering workflows, reduce “keep the lights on” effort, and unlock meaningful productivity gains for product and platform teams across Expedia Group. As a Senior Software Development Engineer at Expedia Group, you design, develop, and operate high-quality software solutions that deliver traveler, partner, and business value across multiple services, raising the bar on architecture, reliability, and data-driven outcomes.

In this role, you will:

• Design, build, and evolve scalable, resilient services and systems that power agentic AI capabilities across our platform.

• Lead system design (including low-level design), API design, and data modeling for complex, distributed services that integrate traditional software components with AI-driven workflows.

• Safely integrate and operate AI/ML‑enabled solutions that improve outcomes, ensuring quality, robustness, observability, and compliance across experimentation, training, and production environments.

• Partner with product, applied science, data, and platform teams to define technical direction, break down ambiguous problems, and deliver high-impact features that are reusable across multiple product domains.

• Drive engineering excellence by setting standards for code quality, testing, performance, security, and reliability, and by mentoring other engineers in modern software and AI development practices.

• Leverage familiarity with AI-driven systems, tools, or workflows and applying AI/ML concepts to real world products to design agentic orchestration, tool interfaces, and safeguards that improve developer and traveler experiences.

Required Qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or a related technical field; or Equivalent related professional experience.

• 6+ years of professional software development experience with a Master's degree, or 8+ years with a Bachelor's degree.

• Proven ownership of the end-to-end lifecycle of one or more services or components, including design, implementation, testing, deployment, monitoring, and incident response.

• Strong proficiency in at least one modern programming language (e.g. Java, Kotlin, Python) and system design (LLD), API design, and data modeling for scalable, reliable services.

• Familiarity with AI-driven systems, tools, or workflows and applying AI/ML concepts to real world products, including integrating AI/ML capabilities into user-facing or platform services.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience designing and evolving multi-service or domain-level architectures that combine deterministic services with AI/ML or agentic components, optimizing for scalability, reliability, and cost.

• Demonstrated track record of improving operational excellence at scale, including observability, SLOs, capacity planning, incident management, and continuous improvement of services that incorporate AI/ML behavior.

• Hands-on experience with safely integrating and operating AI/ML‑enabled solutions that improve outcomes, such as model-backed APIs, retrieval-augmented systems, or workflow/agent orchestration frameworks.

• Ability to use data and experimentation to drive technical and product decisions, including evaluating AI system performance, guardrails, and user impact across multiple product areas.

• Deep experience with AI-driven or agentic architectures at the platform or domain level, such as building tools, connectors, or orchestration layers that allow AI agents to reliably act on complex travel or commerce systems.

The total cash range for this position in Seattle is $184,500.00 to $258,000.00. Employees in this role have the potential to increase their pay up to $295,000.00, which is the top of the range, based on ongoing, demonstrated, and sustained performance in the role.

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.expediagroup.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 athttps://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

Expedia is committed to creating an inclusive work environment with a diverse workforce. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, disability, age, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law. This employer participates in E-Verify. The employer will provide the Social Security Administration (SSA) and, if necessary, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) with information from each new employee's I-9 to confirm work authorization.