Director, Technology

At Expedia Group, we help travelers explore the world, one journey at a time. As a global travel company powered by passionate people, trusted partnerships, and leading technology, we connect travelers, partners, and advertisers through our consumer brands, B2B network, and travel advertising business.

Here, you'll do meaningful work that helps millions of people discover, book, and experience travel with more ease, confidence, and joy. Our five Behaviors-Traveler First, Think Big, Operate with Excellence, Ownership Mindset, and Succeed Together-help foster a supportive environment where people can grow their careers and have the flexibility, benefits, and support to do their best work. Join us and build for travelers everywhere.

Director, Data Engineering

Introduction to the Team:

Expedia Group B2B connects partners across the travel industry to our leading technology, supply, and services - helping them deliver seamless travel experiences to their customers. From airlines and hotels to financial institutions and other travel platforms, we power smarter, faster, and more impactful travel solutions through the most connected marketplace in the world

Make An Impact!

As the Director, Data Engineering, you will lead the Data Engineering, Software Engineering, AI, and Innovation capabilities supporting Expedia Group’s Marketing Automation and MarTech organization. You will set the vision and execution strategy for the platforms, products, and services that connect customer, marketing, product, and operational data and enable responsible, scalable use of AI.

Reporting to the head of Digital Operations, you will ensure that data, software, and AI capabilities are trusted, secure, scalable, and easy to use. You will partner with Marketing, MarTech, Analytics, Product, Technology, and responsible AI stakeholders to improve customer engagement, campaign effectiveness, operational efficiency, and the speed at which the organization can bring new ideas to life.

Leadership Approach:

You are strategic, outcome-oriented, technically credible, and comfortable operating across business and technology. You create clarity, make thoughtful decisions, hold teams accountable for reliability, responsible AI, and customer value, and develop an inclusive environment where people can do their best work. You are curious about what’s next while remaining pragmatic about risk, cost, scale, and trust.

In This Role You Will:

• Set and execute a multi-year data and technology strategy aligned to Marketing Automation, MarTech, personalization, customer engagement, and Digital Operations priorities.
• Lead three interconnected capabilities: data engineering and platform ownership; software engineering and integration services; and AI, innovation, experimentation, and emerging technology.
• Define architecture standards and make pragmatic build, buy, partner, and platform decisions that balance speed, scale, reliability, security, and cost.
• Build and evolve scalable data pipelines, data products, APIs, integrations, services, workflow automation, and developer tooling across the MarTech ecosystem.
• Establish strong practices for data quality, observability, lineage, access, governance, privacy, security, service ownership, and incident response.
• Partner with Analytics and business stakeholders to create trusted metrics, semantic models, and self-service capabilities that support better decisions.
• Enable advanced analytics, experimentation, machine learning, generative AI, and intelligent automation through fit-for-purpose data and engineering foundations.
• Establish the foundations for AI adoption, including model and prompt evaluation, data readiness, monitoring, cost management, access controls, human oversight, and responsible AI guardrails.
• Lead an innovation portfolio from problem discovery and prototyping through evaluation, productionization, or intentional shutdown—ensuring successful experiments become supported and measurable products.
• Create alignment across stakeholders on roadmaps, priorities, dependencies, investment choices, risks, and trade-offs, and communicate progress clearly to senior leadership.
• Build, lead, and develop a high-performing organization of engineering leaders and individual contributors across data, software, and innovation.
• Establish an operating model that balances committed delivery, platform health, technical debt reduction, modernization, and responsible experimentation.
• Improve efficiency through automation, reusable platforms, technology simplification, cloud and vendor cost management, and disciplined portfolio planning.

Experience and Qualifications:

• 10+ years of experience in data engineering, software engineering, platform engineering, or a related discipline, including 3+ years leading managers or multi-disciplinary engineering teams.
• Experience defining and executing technology strategy across complex, enterprise-scale environments.
• A track record of building and operating production-grade data platforms, pipelines, integrations, software services, and automation.
• Strong knowledge of data architecture, data modeling, ETL/ELT, batch and streaming systems, APIs, event-driven design, orchestration, and distributed processing.
• Experience with SQL, Python, cloud platforms such as AWS, GCP, or Azure, and technologies such as Spark, CI/CD, observability, and infrastructure automation.
• Experience integrating CRM, marketing automation, customer data, analytics, experimentation, and personalization platforms. Experience with Salesforce Marketing Cloud, Adobe Marketo, Eloqua, or comparable platforms is a plus.
• Experience establishing data quality, governance, security, privacy, reliability, responsible AI, and operational excellence practices.
• Experience leading software delivery, production operations, incident management, modernization, and platform simplification.
• Experience applying machine learning, generative AI, intelligent automation, or AI-enabled engineering practices in production or enterprise environments.
• Strong communication and influencing skills, with the ability to translate complex technical concepts and trade-offs for technical and non-technical audiences.
• A track record of building high-performing teams, developing leaders, and creating effective partnerships across functions.
• Sound judgment in balancing innovation and speed with sustainability, control, maintainability, and long-term platform health.
• Preferred qualifications
• Experience with customer data platforms, identity resolution, consent management, audience activation, or personalization ecosystems.
• Experience with machine learning, generative AI, predictive analytics, AI agents, model operations, LLM operations, experimentation platforms, or AI-enabled engineering productivity.
• Familiarity with responsible AI practices, including evaluation, explainability, safety, human oversight, and lifecycle governance.
• Experience designing data products, semantic layers, metrics platforms, or self-service analytics capabilities.
• Experience leading cloud migration, platform consolidation, technology simplification, or other multi-year modernization programs.
• Familiarity with GDPR, CCPA, or comparable privacy and data protection requirements.
• Experience managing strategic technology vendors, external partners, and enterprise platform dependencies.
• Experience working in a global, matrixed, consumer-facing, or high-volume digital environment.

The total cash range for this position in Austin is $231,000.00 to $323,500.00. Employees in this role have the potential to increase their pay up to $369,500.00, 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.

Benefits and perks

Expedia Group offers benefits and perks designed to support employees and their families, including medical, dental, and vision coverage, paid time off, an Employee Assistance Program, wellness and travel reimbursement, travel discounts, and International Airlines Travel Agent Network (IATAN) membership. Learn more about life at Expedia Group at https://careers.expediagroup.com/life.

Accommodation requests

Expedia Group is committed to providing an inclusive and accessible recruiting experience. If you need an accommodation or adjustment due to a disability during the application or recruiting process, please submit a request at https://expedia.service-now.com/askeg?id=job_accommodation.

About Expedia Group

Expedia Group includes three flagship consumer brands - Expedia, Hotels.com, and Vrbo - along with a leading B2B travel business and travel advertising offerings. Across our brands and business, we help travelers explore the world with confidence and ease.

Important notice

Employment opportunities and job offers at Expedia Group will always come from Expedia Group's Talent Acquisition and hiring teams. Never share sensitive personal information unless you are confident of the recipient. Expedia Group does not extend job offers via email or messaging tools to individuals with whom we have not made prior contact. Our email domain is @expediagroup.com. The official place to find and apply for roles is https://careers.expediagroup.com/jobs/.

Equal Opportunity

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, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law. 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.