Software Development Engineer II - Back End, GenAI Platform

Expedia Group brands power global travel for everyone, everywhere. We design cutting-edge tech to make travel smoother and more memorable, and we create groundbreaking solutions for our partners. Our diverse, vibrant, and welcoming community is essential in driving our success.

Why Join Us?

To shape the future of travel, people must come first. Guided by our Values and Leadership Agreements, we foster an open culture where everyone belongs, differences are celebrated and know that when one of us wins, we all win.

We provide a full benefits package, including exciting travel perks, generous time-off, parental leave, a flexible work model (with some pretty cool offices), and career development resources, all to fuel our employees' passion for travel and ensure a rewarding career journey. We’re building a more open world. Join us.

Introduction to the Team

Expedia Technology teams partner with our Product teams to create innovative products, services, and tools to deliver high-quality experiences for travelers, partners, and our employees. A singular technology platform powered by data and machine learning provides secure, differentiated, and personalized experiences that drive loyalty and traveler satisfaction. 

The Software Developer II role is part of the GenAI Platform team. The GenAI Platform team builds and operates Expedia Group’s shared generative AI platform - tooling, services, and guardrails - that enable product and ML teams to safely experiment with, deploy, and scale GenAI-powered experiences across our brands. You will design, build, and maintain core platform services and integrations that improve reliability, performance, and developer experience, helping teams deliver GenAI features to travelers and partners faster. 

In this role, you will:

• Design, build, test, and operate backend services and APIs that power Expedia Group platforms and products, with a strong focus on system design (LLD), API design, and data modeling.

• Implement clean, well-tested, observable code by applying modern engineering practices including code reviews, automated testing, CI/CD pipelines, monitoring, alerting, logging, and participation in an on-call rotation.

• Develop and integrate services in a cloud environment (such as AWS), working with data stores and messaging systems to ensure reliable, secure, and well-instrumented data flows across services and domains.

• Contribute to and extend platform guardrails and safety features, including authentication, authorization, key and secret management, and service-level observability, helping applications remain secure, compliant, and operationally robust.

• Work with AI/ML‑enabled tools, AI-driven systems, and workflows as part of daily engineering work, applying foundational AI/ML and GenAI concepts to real-world products and safely integrating and operating AI/ML‑enabled solutions that improve outcomes.

• Own well-scoped features and components end-to-end—from design and implementation through testing, rollout, documentation, and support—collaborating with senior engineers, product managers, and applied scientists to deliver reusable capabilities across multiple product teams and domains.

Minimum Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or a related technical field; or Equivalent related professional experience.

• 2+ years of relevant professional experience.

• Experience designing, building, and operating backend APIs and services in a cloud environment (such as AWS), including automated testing, CI/CD pipelines, monitoring, and logging.

• Proficiency in at least one modern programming language (such as Python, Java, or similar), with a solid foundation in software design principles, system design (LLD), data structures, design patterns, and API and data model design.

• Working knowledge of at least one data store technology (relational, NoSQL, or search), such as PostgreSQL or Elasticsearch, and familiarity with AI-driven systems, tools, or workflows and applying AI/ML concepts to real world products.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience contributing to internal platforms, shared services, or SDKs used by multiple teams, including authoring clear technical documentation such as design documents, runbooks, and how-to guides.

• Exposure to or strong interest in LLM-powered systems and GenAI concepts (for example, prompting, embeddings, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), and vector stores), with demonstrated willingness to learn and safely integrate and operate AI/ML‑enabled solutions that improve platform and customer outcomes.

• Familiarity with RAG or vector store tooling (such as LangChain, LlamaIndex, or LangGraph) or workflow/agent orchestration systems (for example, n8n, Flowise, or similar), and experience applying these within backend or data-intensive services.

• Experience working with more than one programming language and understanding trade-offs across different backend and data workloads, including making data-driven decisions about system design, API boundaries, and data modeling for scalable services.

• A track record of writing maintainable, well-structured, and well-tested code, and of proactively improving code quality, operational reliability, and observability for services running at scale on shared platform infrastructure, including AI/ML‑ or GenAI‑enabled services, with hands-on experience using AI/ML‑enabled or GenAI‑backed features in production systems

The total cash range for this position in Chicago is $111,000.00 to $155,500.00. Employees in this role have the potential to increase their pay up to $177,500.00, which is the top of the range, based on ongoing, demonstrated, and sustained performance in the role.

Starting pay for this role will vary based on multiple factors, including location, available budget, and an individual’s knowledge, skills, and experience. Pay ranges may be modified in the future.

Expedia Group is proud to offer a wide range of benefits to support employees and their families, including medical/dental/vision, paid time off, and an Employee Assistance Program. To fuel each employee’s passion for travel, we offer a wellness & travel reimbursement, travel discounts, and an International Airlines Travel Agent (IATAN) membership. View our full list of benefits.

Accommodation requests

If you need assistance with any part of the application or recruiting process due to a disability, or other physical or mental health conditions, please reach out to our Recruiting Accommodations Team through the Accommodation Request.

We are proud to be named as a Best Place to Work on Glassdoor in 2024 and be recognized for award-winning culture by organizations like Forbes, TIME, Disability:IN, and others.

Expedia Group's family of brands includes: Brand Expedia®, Hotels.com®, Expedia® Partner Solutions, Vrbo®, trivago®, Orbitz®, Travelocity®, Hotwire®, Wotif®, ebookers®, CheapTickets®, Expedia Group™ Media Solutions, Expedia Local Expert®, CarRentals.com™, and Expedia Cruises™. © 2024 Expedia, Inc. All rights reserved. Trademarks and logos are the property of their respective owners. CST: 2029030-50

Employment opportunities and job offers at Expedia Group will always come from Expedia Group’s Talent Acquisition and hiring teams. Never provide sensitive, personal information to someone unless you’re confident who the recipient is. Expedia Group does not extend job offers via email or any other messaging tools to individuals with whom we have not made prior contact. Our email domain is @expediagroup.com. The official website to find and apply for job openings at Expedia Group is careers.expediagroup.com/jobs.

Expedia is committed to creating an inclusive work environment with a diverse workforce. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, disability, age, or veteran status. This employer participates in E-Verify. The employer will provide the Social Security Administration (SSA) and, if necessary, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) with information from each new employee's I-9 to confirm work authorization.