Senior Director, ML/AI: Search & Recommendations

Expedia Group; San Jose (CA); Presencial; USD 323.000 - 453.000; Jornada completa

Ventajas ofrecidas por este puesto de trabajo

Medical coverage

Paid time off

Travel discounts

Wellness program

Descripción de la vacante

Expedia Group, a global travel platform, seeks a Senior Director of ML/AI for Search and Recommendation in San Jose. You will lead centralized science, shape ranking foundations, and drive AI-native discovery across multiple brands.

The role requires building scalable systems and guiding multi-disciplinary teams toward production-ready solutions. Top candidates will have 15+ years in data science and ML with leadership experience, and a track record of influencing executives while delivering

Formación

• 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: Large-scale Ranking Foundation Models, Representation Learning, and Retrieval systems.
• Expertise in Model Distillation: training large 'Teacher' models and distilling to 'Student' models for production ranking.
• Architectural Leadership: build-vs-buy decisions and ML systems for scale and real-time inference.
• Stakeholder Influence: ability to explain architectural trade-offs to non-technical partners.

Responsabilidades

• Lead the Strategic Vision: define and execute the scientific roadmap for the Search and Recommendation stack.
• Serve as a Key Strategic Partner: influence senior Product and Engineering leadership to shape the roadmap.
• Make Technical Architecture Decisions: integrate AI (Vector Search, RAG) into production stack balancing performance and cost.
• Develop Ranking Foundation Models & Distill Intelligence: oversee training of large multi-objective architectures.
• Lead and Scale High-Performing Teams: manage Applied Scientists and ML Leaders across disciplines.
• Drive Marketplace Health: optimize algorithms for long-term business value and partners’ ecosystem.

Conocimientos

Data Science

Machine Learning

Leadership

Stakeholder Influence

System Architecture

Educación

PhD or MS in CS/ML

Herramientas

Vector Search

RAG

Hybrid Retrieval

Descripción del empleo

Expedia Group, a global travel platform, seeks a Senior Director of ML/AI for Search and Recommendation in San Jose. You will lead centralized science, shape ranking foundations, and drive AI-native discovery across multiple brands.

The role requires building scalable systems and guiding multi-disciplinary teams toward production-ready solutions. Top candidates will have 15+ years in data science and ML with leadership experience, and a track record of influencing executives while delivering