Senior Machine Learning Engineer - Personalisation - Accommodations

Key Skills

Java Programming, Python Programming, C++, C Programming, SQL, Cloud computing, Scala Programming, Machine learning techniques, Data science techniques, MATLAB Programming, PyTorch, TensorFlow, R Programming

Job Description

It wasn’t so long ago that booking a trip to see the Eiffel Tower, stroll down New York’s iconic Madison Avenue or feel the sand between our toes on Copacabana Beach was simply a matter of a few taps on our smartphone. In fact, that’s what we do at Booking.com. We make it easier for everyone to experience the world. And while that world might feel a little farther away right now, we’re busy preparing for when the world is ready to travel once more.

Staying the leader in accommodations is a top priority for Booking. The market represents a large share of business already, and yet is one of the markets with the most untapped opportunities.

One of these opportunities is to make our user experience personalised, relevant, and scalable. This involves exploring new UX paradigms, ensuring that we show the right products for our users at every stage of their journey, and personalising using Machine Learning and allied data products. As a Machine Learning Engineer within the Web Core ML team, you will be responsible for creating the ML platform that powers up UX personalization capabilities in our supported platforms.

B.Responsible

• Develop production-grade machine learning code, from models to features and pipelines, allowing for scalability, realtime inference, monitoring and retraining. Monitor product health, performance and business impact and act accordingly when not met.
• Build readable and reusable code, choosing the right technologies, coding methodologies, and approach from carefully designed rapid prototyping to software deployment at scale. Identify opportunities for platform-based development and reuse by abstracting business problems to generalised ML/AI solutions.
• Align, design and implement software to allow seamless integration of machine learning products within the UX personalization platform.
• Translate specific business problems into ML/AI challenges and identify the best approach within the constraints of the production environment. Build proof-of-concepts to test new ideas and demonstrate their potential value to relevant stakeholders.
• Push for improvements, scaling and extending machine learning tooling and infrastructure, collaborating with central teams.
• Execute applied research plans for machine intelligence on a specific product by designing innovative ML/AI models, algorithms, and approaches that deliver both short-term commercial impact and longer-term differentiated business value and customer experiences. Document and share the findings.
• Maintain a highly cross-disciplinary perspective, solving issues by applying approaches and methods from across a variety of ML/AI disciplines and related fields. Coach others through evidence and clear communication, explaining advanced technical concepts.
• Identify underlying issues and opportunities across domains and situations through application of structured thinking and logic, and formulate possible improvements.
• Continuously evolve your craft by keeping up to date with the latest developments in ML/AI and related technologies, introducing them to the machine learning community and promoting 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.

B.Skilled

• 5+ years of software engineering experience with at least 2 years involved with the application of Machine Learning to business problems in a commercial environment.
• Strong skills and working experience with at least one server-side programming language; preferably Java. Python knowledge is an extra advantage.
• Demonstrable experience of multiple machine learning facets, such as working with large data sets, experimentation, scalability and optimization.
• Strong working knowledge of big data retrieval and processing tools such as Spark and SQL.
• Experience working in a cloud environment is a plus.
• Experience with data-driven product development: analytics, A/B testing, etc.
• You have a ‘can do’ attitude and you act proactively and not reactively.
• BSc or higher in Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence, Software Engineering, or related fields.
• Excellent English communication skills, both written and verbal.

B.Offered

• Living and working in Amsterdam, one of the most cosmopolitan cities in Europe
• Contributing to a high scale, complex, world renowned product and seeing real-time impact of your work on millions of travellers worldwide
• Working in a fast-paced and performance driven culture
• Opportunity to utilise technical expertise, leadership capabilities and entrepreneurial spirit
• Promote and drive impactful and innovative engineering solutions
• Technical, behavioural and interpersonal competence advancement via on-the-job opportunities, experimental projects, hackathons, conferences and active community participation
• Competitive compensation and benefits package and some great added perks of working in the home city of Booking.com