Lead Product Designer – Personalization & AI Experiences

Expedia, Inc.; Austin (TX); On-site; USD 173,000 - 277,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical, dental, vision coverage

Paid time off

Wellness and travel reimbursement

Travel discounts

IATAN membership

Job summary

Expedia Group in Austin, TX seeks a Lead Product Designer to shape personalization across memory, signals, and AI-driven journeys. You will partner with Product, Engineering, Data Science, ML, Analytics, Pricing, and Design to translate complex opportunities into intuitive experiences that travelers understand and trust.

You will lead cross-functional efforts, craft beautiful, usable interfaces, and mentor teams while translating business goals into measurable traveler value.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of product design, UX design, interaction design, or equivalent experience creating digital products and experiences.
• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in User Experience Design, Human-Computer Interaction, or a related field; or equivalent professional experience.
• A portfolio demonstrating strong product-design craft across complex digital experiences, including work that progressed toward or into market.
• Ability to translate ambiguous or technically complex opportunities into clear, intuitive product experiences.
• Strong systems thinking and the ability to connect individual interactions across broader journeys, platforms, or ecosystems.
• Experience collaborating with cross-functional partners such as Product, Engineering, Data Science, Machine Learning, or Analytics.
• Experience with, or demonstrated ability to quickly learn, AI, personalization, machine learning, or data-informed product experiences.
• Strong prototyping skills and the ability to use prototypes to explore interactions, communicate ideas, and evaluate product directions.
• Strong communication and storytelling skills, with the ability to articulate design rationale and influence cross-functional partners and senior stakeholders.
• Ability to work effectively in ambiguous, evolving product spaces while maintaining a high bar for craft and execution.

Responsibilities

• Shape the future of personalization across memory, signals, and models to deliver relevant traveler experiences.
• Solve cold-start challenges by designing experiences from first interactions.
• Design signal-capture experiences that travelers can express what matters to them.
• Connect experiences across surfaces and the broader personalization ecosystem.

Skills

Product design

UX design

Interaction design

Systems thinking

Prototyping

Storytelling

Cross-functional collaboration

Education

Bachelor's or Master’s in UX/HCI

Tools

React

Cursor

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.

Locations

Austin, Seattle, San Jose, San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, Chicago

Why this role matters

Every traveler comes to Expedia Group with different needs, preferences, and intentions. The opportunity is to create experiences that understand those differences and become more useful with every interaction.

As part of our AI Platforms, Personalization, Memory, and Signal Capture team, you will help define how traveler signals, preferences, behaviors, memory, and feedback come together to power the next generation of personalized travel experiences.

One of our most interesting challenges is what happens when we know very little about a traveler. Many visitors arrive without prior booking history, while the signals we do have can be fragmented, missing, or difficult to translate into experiences travelers understand and trust.

This role sits at the intersection of product design, personalization, AI and machine learning, and systems thinking. You will help turn complex technology and data into intuitive experiences that progressively understand travelers better while giving them confidence in the experiences we create.

What you will do

As a Lead Product Designer, you will own meaningful parts of the personalization experience from exploration through product delivery. You will work across product surfaces and the underlying technology layer, connecting what Expedia Group learns about travelers with experiences that become increasingly relevant and useful over time.

You will partner closely with Product, Engineering, Data Science, Machine Learning, Analytics, Pricing, and Design to explore opportunities across memory, signal capture, personalization models, and cold‑start experiences.

• Shape the future of personalization. Define and design experiences that help Expedia Group better understand traveler intent, preferences, and behavior, and translate those signals into meaningful personalized experiences.
• Solve the cold‑start challenge. Explore ways to create value from a traveler’s first interactions, moving experiences from limited context toward increasingly relevant personalization.
• Design better signal‑capture experiences. Create thoughtful ways for travelers to express what matters to them, explicitly or implicitly, while considering how personalization can remain understandable and explainable.
• Connect the experience and the system. Think across individual product surfaces and the broader personalization ecosystem, including how signals, memory, models, and traveler interactions influence one another.
• Turn complex technology into intuitive experiences. Partner with technical teams to translate opportunities in AI, machine learning, data, and personalization into experiences travelers can understand and use.
• Prototype to learn. Use high‑fidelity prototyping and experimentation to make ideas tangible, evaluate possibilities, and accelerate learning. Coded prototyping can be one approach, but it is not a requirement.
• Carry ideas toward real products. Help promising concepts mature into experiences that can inform and become part of Expedia Group products.
• Set a high craft bar. Bring strong interaction and visual design judgment to complex problems, translating conceptual thinking into cohesive, polished experiences.
• Influence through storytelling. Communicate the thinking, evidence, tradeoffs, and opportunities behind your work so partners and leaders can make informed decisions.
• Raise the capability of the broader organization. Share patterns, learnings, and approaches that help other teams apply personalization thinking across the traveler journey.

What success looks like

Traveler & Product Impact

• Your work creates clearer, more relevant personalized experiences and helps ideas progress from exploration into product opportunities.

Design Excellence

• You bring a strong product‑design craft bar to an emerging technical space, creating experiences that feel thoughtful, intuitive, polished, and useful.

Systems Thinking

• You connect individual interactions to the larger personalization ecosystem and understand how traveler signals, memory, models, and product experiences work together.

Strategic Influence

• You make complex ideas understandable through strong storytelling, prototypes, and evidence, helping teams and leaders align around a direction.

Minimum qualifications

• 8+ years of product design, UX design, interaction design, or equivalent experience creating digital products and experiences.
• Bachelors or Masters degree in User Experience Design, Human‑Computer Interaction, or a related field; or equivalent professional experience.
• A portfolio demonstrating strong product‑design craft across complex digital experiences, including work that progressed toward or into market.
• Ability to translate ambiguous or technically complex opportunities into clear, intuitive product experiences.
• Strong systems thinking and the ability to connect individual interactions across broader journeys, platforms, or ecosystems.
• Experience collaborating with cross‑functional partners such as Product, Engineering, Data Science, Machine Learning, or Analytics.
• Experience with, or demonstrated ability to quickly learn, AI, personalization, machine learning, or data‑informed product experiences.
• Strong prototyping skills and the ability to use prototypes to explore interactions, communicate ideas, and evaluate product directions.
• Strong communication and storytelling skills, with the ability to articulate design rationale and influence cross‑functional partners and senior stakeholders.
• Ability to work effectively in ambiguous, evolving product spaces while maintaining a high bar for craft and execution.

Preferred qualifications

• Experience designing personalization, recommendations, identity, memory, preferences, or signal‑capture experiences.
• Experience designing products or experiences informed by AI or machine‑learning systems.
• Experience partnering closely with data scientists or working with model‑driven product experiences.
• Experience using AI‑assisted design or prototyping tools.
• Experience creating functional coded prototypes with tools such as React, Cursor, or similar technologies.
• Front‑end, full‑stack, creative‑technology, or design‑technologist experience.

Expedia Group is proud to offer a wide range of benefits to support employees and their families, including medical/dental/vision, paid time off, and an Employee Assistance Program. To fuel each employee’s passion for travel, we offer a wellness & travel reimbursement, travel discounts, and an International Airlines Travel Agent (IATAN) membership. View our full list of benefits.

The total cash range for this position in Austin is $173,000.00 to $242,500.00. Employees in this role have the potential to increase their pay up to $277,000.00, which is the top of the range, based on ongoing, demonstrated, and sustained performance in the role.

The total cash range for this position in Seattle is $173,000.00 to $242,500.00. Employees in this role have the potential to increase their pay up to $277,000.00, which is the top of the range, based on ongoing, demonstrated, and sustained performance in the role.

The total cash range for this position in San Jose is $187,000.00 to $261,500.00. Employees in this role have the potential to increase their pay up to $299,000.00, 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 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

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.