Senior ML-Driven Backend Engineer, Ads Platform

Expedia; Chicago (IL); On-site; USD 172,000 - 240,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical, dental, and vision coverage

Paid time off

Employee Assistance Program

Wellness and travel reimbursement

Travel discounts

IATAN membership

Job summary

Expedia Group in Chicago is seeking a Senior Software Development Engineer with ML focus to design and operate backend services powering advertiser experiences. You will deploy ML models, build scalable platforms, and collaborate with ML engineers and product teams to deliver measurable business outcomes.

Responsibilities include leading technical design, ensuring reliability, and applying AI capabilities across campaigns while working in a fast-paced advertising environment.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree with 8+ years of experience, or Master’s degree with 6+ years in a related technical field.
• Strong experience designing and building scalable backend services and distributed systems in production.
• Strong programming experience in Python and at least one of Java, Kotlin, or similar backend languages.
• 3+ years of hands-on experience building, deploying, and operating ML or AI-powered systems in production.
• Experience integrating ML models or AI capabilities into production software systems.
• Experience working with data and ML pipelines, including batch or streaming data processing and model inference workflows.
• Familiarity with cloud-native distributed systems and platforms such as AWS, Kubernetes, or equivalent.
• Experience collaborating with product and business partners to translate requirements into technical solutions.
• Proven ability to lead end-to-end technical design for complex systems and deliver them in production.

Responsibilities

• Design, implement, and evolve backend APIs and distributed services powering advertiser experiences.
• Architect and operate production ML-enabled systems integrated into campaigns and recommendations.
• Collaborate with ML engineers and product teams to translate data into scalable solutions.
• Lead end-to-end technical design for complex systems and ensure production readiness.

Skills

Backend design

Python

Java/Kotlin

ML/AI in production

ML model integration

Data pipelines

Cloud-native systems

Product collaboration

End-to-end design

Education

Bachelor’s or Master’s in a technical field

Tools

AWS

Kubernetes

Spark

CI/CD for ML

Job description

Expedia Group in Chicago is seeking a Senior Software Development Engineer with ML focus to design and operate backend services powering advertiser experiences. You will deploy ML models, build scalable platforms, and collaborate with ML engineers and product teams to deliver measurable business outcomes.

Responsibilities include leading technical design, ensuring reliability, and applying AI capabilities across campaigns while working in a fast-paced advertising environment.