Principal Software Development Engineer

Expedia Expedia · Hospitality · Seattle, WA

Principal Software Development Engineer for Expedia's Air Shopping Platform, focusing on end-to-end platform development for flight search, pricing, and shopping. The role involves leading architectural vision, system design, and delivery of complex software solutions, including the safe integration and operation of AI/ML-enabled solutions to improve outcomes. Experience with neural search, embedding-based retrieval systems, vector databases, semantic search, ranking models, personalization engines, and inference pipelines is preferred.

What you'd actually do

  1. Lead the architectural vision, design, and delivery of complex software solutions across multiple technical domains.
  2. Drive system design, API development, and data modeling to ensure secure, maintainable, and high-performing platforms.
  3. Guide and mentor engineering teams, fostering technical excellence and innovation across projects and domains.
  4. Safely integrate and operate AI/ML-enabled solutions that improve outcomes, championing best practices in responsible AI deployment.
  5. Optimize operational excellence by implementing robust software development practices and scalable engineering processes.

Skills

Required

  • Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or a related technical field; or equivalent related professional experience.
  • 12+ years of relevant professional experience.
  • Demonstrated expertise in large-scale system architecture, technical decision making, and delivery of complex multi-domain solutions.
  • Proven track record in designing and operating secure, high-quality, and scalable software systems.
  • Familiarity with AI-driven systems, tools, or workflows and applying AI/ML concepts to real world products.

Nice to have

  • Experience leading architectural transformation and modernization initiatives for large, distributed systems.
  • Demonstrated success guiding engineering organizations through periods of significant growth, change, or complexity.
  • Expertise in full stack engineering with proven ability to operate across multiple technical domains and platforms.
  • Track record of championing data-driven decision making and operational excellence for mission-critical systems.
  • Experience building and deploying neural search and embedding-based retrieval systems, including vector databases (e.g., Pinecone, Weaviate, FAISS), semantic search architectures, and large-scale similarity search at scale with sub-100ms latency requirements.
  • Strong experience with deep learning frameworks (PyTorch, TensorFlow) for production ML systems, including designing and deploying ranking models, personalization engines, and real-time inference pipelines with knowledge of model serving patterns (e.g., TorchServe, TensorFlow Serving, BentoML) and online/offline evaluation frameworks.

What the JD emphasized

  • AI/ML-enabled solutions
  • neural search
  • embedding-based retrieval systems
  • vector databases
  • semantic search architectures
  • large-scale similarity search at scale with sub-100ms latency requirements
  • deep learning frameworks (PyTorch, TensorFlow) for production ML systems
  • ranking models
  • personalization engines
  • real-time inference pipelines
  • model serving patterns
  • online/offline evaluation frameworks

Other signals

  • AI/ML-enabled solutions
  • neural search
  • embedding-based retrieval systems
  • vector databases
  • semantic search architectures
  • similarity search
  • ranking models
  • personalization engines
  • real-time inference pipelines
  • model serving patterns
  • online/offline evaluation frameworks