Machine Learning Manager - Gen AI Foundation

At Booking.com, we want to empower everyone to experience the world. Through our products, partners, and people is how we do it. There's a whole planet of possibilities out there, and we bring it all together, in one place. Booking.com (USA), Inc, one of the support companies in the United States, is seeking a full time Machine Learning Manager.

As a Machine Learning Manager you are a leader of your team, who generates significant business impact directly and indirectly by working through others. You lead by example, gaining respect through actions, not your title. Developing your team and motivating them to achieve their goals. Providing feedback timely and managing your key team performance indicators. You make things happen by maintaining motivation and conveying a sense of urgency, focusing on outcomes and accomplishments, while respecting the need to balance long- and short-term goals, by applying influencing techniques and decision making skills.

Our Machine Learning Platform is behind what makes Booking able to deliver personal experiences and you will be a part of its development helping to support multiple areas of the business as they use ML to address some of the hardest problems that we face, from detecting fraud to recommending which properties you should check for your next stay.

Our Gen AI Foundation team is responsible for developing the tools and infrastructure within the ML platform. Our primary objective is to solve business challenges by creating innovative and advanced Gen AI applications. These applications are designed to cater to the needs of both internal and external users.

This role is based out of Washington, DC, USA. You will have your product team in Washington, DC but the majority of the stakeholders and users will be in Amsterdam and Tel Aviv. This role would require in-frequent travel (~2 times a year) to Amsterdam / Tel Aviv and adapting your working hours to be able to communicate and collaborate with stakeholders.

What You'll Be Doing:

• Build a strong team within their area, by coaching and developing individual contributors

• Prioritize work in collaboration with Product Managers, depending on business needs and keeping stakeholders aligned at all times.

• Translate machine learning vision and strategy into planning and execution, and ensure timely delivery of the plans.

• Translate business problems into viable, reliable and robust ML and AI solutions, accounting for constraints of the production environment.

• Monitor product health, performance and business impact and act accordingly when requirements are not met.

• Identify underlying issues and opportunities across domains and situations that are not obviously related through application of structured thinking and logic.

• Solve issues by applying methods and insights gained from a variety of disciplines, navigating a variety of environments.

• Drives, coaches and mentors others through evidence and clear communication, explaining advanced technical concepts in simpler terms.

• Continuously evolve their craft. Keep up to date with industry and academic standard methodologies, periodically explore new technologies, introduce them to the machine learning community and promote their application in areas where they can generate impact.

• Actively contribute to Machine Learning at Booking.com through training, exploration of new technologies, interviewing,onboarding and mentoring colleagues.

• Push for improvements, scaling and extending machine learning tooling and infrastructure, collaborating with central teams.

What You'll Bring:

• 8+ years of relevant work experience including 2+ years leading a team of a minimum of 4 people in a fast-paced production environment.

• Experience collaborating cross functionally in the development of machine learning products (e.g. Developers, UX specialists, Product Managers, etc.).

• Advanced knowledge and experience in areas like e.g. Generative AI, MLOps, Recommender Systems, Deep Learning, etc]

• Demonstrable experience of multiple machine learning facets, such as working with large data sets, experimentation, scalability and optimization.

• Experience designing and executing end-to-end technical roadmaps.

• Successfully driving technical, business and people related initiatives that improve productivity, performance and quality while communicating with stakeholders at all levels

• Experience with data-driven product development: analytics, A/B testing, etc.

• Strong skills and working experience with at least two server-side programming languages; Python or Java specific knowledge is an advantage.

• Working experience with version control systems.

• Excellent English communication skills, both written and verbal.

• You have a 'can do' demeanor and you act proactively and not reactively.

• Excellent English communication skills, both written and verbal.

• You are required to live within a commutable distance from your assigned office location

What We'll Provide:

Booking.com's Total Rewards Philosophy is not only about compensation but also about benefits. Our Total Rewards are aimed to make it easier for you to experience all that life has to offer on your terms, so you can focus on what really matters. We offer competitive compensation as well as thoughtful, valuable, and even fun benefits which include:

• Medical, life, and disability insurance*

• Annual paid time off and generous paid leave scheme including: parent, grandparent, bereavement, sick, and care leave

• Industry leading product discounts for yourself, friends, and family, including automatic Genius Level 3 status and quarterly Booking.com wallet credit

• Free access to online learning platforms, mentorship programs, and a complimentary Headspace membership

• Collaborative, friendly and diverse culture

• Referral Program

• This role will have a salary range of: $242500 - $296300)

• Additional Annual or Quarterly bonus potential (role dependent)

• Please note that while our philosophy is the same in every location, benefits may differ by office/country.

Should you require accommodation to meet the essential functions of this job, please let us know.

Pre-Employment Screening:

If your application is successful, your personal data may be used for a pre-employment screening check by a third party as permitted by applicable law. Depending on the vacancy and applicable law, a pre-employment screening may include employment history, education and other information (such as media information) that may be necessary for determining your qualifications and suitability for the position.