Machine Learning Scientist, Expedia Group
Reinforcement Learning
Online travel shopping company
Be an early applicant
Online travel shopping company
1001+ employees
Be an early applicant
1001+ employees
Company mission
Expedia's mission is to power global travel for everyone, everywhere.
Role
Who you are
- If you’re passionate about applying advanced machine learning techniques to solve dynamic problems, this is the role for you
- You have a MS/MSc or PhD in computer science, electrical engineering, statistics or similarly quantitative field with 3+ years of experience in a similar role
- You have proven experience creating and growing large-scale production learning systems and solving hard problems in industrial ML: computational advertising, large-scale recommender systems, fraud and anomaly detection in non-stationary environments, click-through optimization in eCommerce, etc
- You have experience in Reinforcement Learning including contextual and context-free bandits and off-policy evaluation
- You have deep experience with programming languages such as Python, Java, Scala; common data tools: Spark, SQL, Kafka, Flink; and popular ML tools, PyTorch, Scikit Learn, Tensorflow RL; Understanding of modern software design and testing: Devops, CI/CD, Unit testing
- You have experience in advanced experimental design (e.g. adaptive designs and A/B testing hypothesis)
- Bonus: You have publications in relevant venues: KDD, COLT, NeurIPS, ICLR, RecSys, ICML, SIGIR
What the job involves
- The Reinforcement Learning (RL) team at Expedia Group applies cutting-edge RL and multi-armed bandit techniques to optimize user experiences at scale, in real-time
- Our contextual multi-armed bandit AI platform serves personalized, multivariate user experiences, considers the unique context of each visitor, and quickly adapts to user behavior
- This innovative approach enables faster iteration toward optimal product solutions compared to traditional A/B testing and gracefully handles ever-changing content and continuous "cold start" scenarios
- Our work drives optimized experiences across hundreds of millions of customer interactions on the Expedia Group travel platform, generating tens of millions of dollars in profit
- The Reinforcement Learning Scientist role is part of the Reinforcement Learning team in the Expedia Product & Technology division at Expedia Group
- This role focuses on developing and deploying RL-driven algorithms to elevate the customer experience across the entire platform
- As a part of this innovative team, you’ll tackle complex, high-impact business problems by delivering optimized, adaptive user experiences in real time
- Apply supervised, unsupervised, and reinforcement learning theory, models, algorithms, and techniques, using in-house and open-source libraries to tackle business problems
- Write clean, maintainable, and optimized code that enables efficient collaboration on a common codebase shared among Machine Learning Scientists (MLSs) and Machine Learning Engineers (MLEs)
- Collaborate cross-functionally with business partners to define and test complex objective functions
- Conduct thorough literature reviews to identify and assess promising algorithms that fit business needs, implementing them from scratch when necessary
- Select appropriate approaches, balancing level of effort and iterative delivery to solve for the objective, not merely the request
- Influence decision-making and drive results through clear, concise communication, including writing and data visualizations for various audiences
Application process
- End Date: April 21, 2025 (30+ days left to apply
Salary benchmarks
Our take
Expedia is an online travel agency. They enable users to access a wide range of services including airline tickets, hotel reservations, car rentals, cruises, vacation packages, and various attractions and services via the world wide web and telephone travel agents. Its primary web businesses include Expedia.com, Hotels.com, Hotwire.com, and Egencia.com.
Between 2021 and 2022, Expedia has been selling and merging a list of its sub-brands in a bid to simplify its operations, including Egencia and Classic Vacations. Due to plummeting share prices, mostly in the case of its sub-brands, Expedia has been leveraging its subsidiaries' customer base and merging them into the company’s core brand. Contrasting this move, Expedia has also been partnering with tech start-ups in a bid to make travel more accessible to underserved groups. Becoming Rentable, a travel company for the disabled is one of 12 startups that are part of Expedia Group’s new Open World Accelerator Programme.
What this indicates is Expedia’s shift from buying other travel companies and a move towards enhancing the experience of its preexisting customer base. This move is aiding in a long-term plan for greater long-term traveler loyalty, utilizing Expedia’s vast amounts of data, not just from reviews, but from check-in, cleanliness, communication, cancelations, etc to inform how guests experience a property.
Steph
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
Company
Company benefits
- Leisure Travel Reimbursement
- Travel Discounts
- Family & Friends Discount
- Employee Assistance Program
- Wellness Reimbursement
- Global Service Awards
- Business Travel Medical Insurance
- Matching Gifts
- Expert Medical Opinion
- New Parent Benefit
- Employee Stock Purchase Plan
- Private Health Insurance
Company values
- Force Simplicity
- Include Consciously
- Trust Each Other
- Go Get What's Next
- Choose Fearlessly
Company HQ
Interbay, Seattle, WA
Articles
Leadership
Peter M. Kern
(CEO, not founder)Has been a director of Expedia Group since completion of the IAC/Expedia Group Spin-Off and has served as Vice Chairman of Expedia Group since June 2018. Previously CEO of Tribune Media and Managing Partner of InterMedia Partners VII, LP, a private equity firm.
People progressing
Joined as Manager - Strategic Initiatives and has been promoted multiple times to Senior Manager - Strategic Initiatives after 1 year, to Director - Strategic Initiatives also after 1 year, and again to Senior Director - Strategy & Supply after 2 years. Now works as the Vice President of the Travel Agent Affiliate Program.
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