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.

Software Development Engineer III

Our Technology Team partners with teams across Expedia Group 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.

We are seeking an Software Development Engineer III to join our high-performing, fast-growing Advertising Technology team, responsible for building and operating real-time ad delivery systems that power ad ranking, auctions, bidding, and budget enforcement at scale. These systems sit on the critical path of ad delivery, where low latency, correctness, and reliability directly impact revenue, advertiser ROI, and user experience.

You will work closely with Product, Machine Learning, Data Science, and Platform teams to integrate with APIs and other microservices, incorporate ML-driven signals into high-throughput backend services, and help scale the platform as the business grows.

In This Role, You Will:

• Design and deliver end-to-end backend features using Kotlin/Java services exposed via REST and gRPC APIs

• Build and operate real-time ad delivery pipelines, including ad ranking, auctions, bidding logic, and budget enforcement

• Integrate backend services with feature stores and ML model inference services to support real-time decisioning

• Design low-latency, high-throughput APIs and service integrations that meet strict performance and reliability requirements

• Collaborate closely with product, ML, data, and platform teams to shape requirements and technical solutions

• Apply strong software design principles, algorithms, and data structures to build scalable, high-performance systems

• Participate in and lead code reviews across backend codebases

• Debug and resolve complex production issues across real-time services and downstream dependencies

• Participate in on-call rotations, incident response, and root-cause analysis

• Identify architectural and operational inefficiencies and drive pragmatic improvements

• Mentor junior engineers through pairing, reviews, and technical guidance

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree or higher in Computer Science, Engineering, or equivalent professional experience

• 5+ years of professional software engineering experience with strong expertise in Java, Kotlin, and JVM-based frameworks

• Solid understanding of software design principles, algorithms, data structures, and large-scale distributed systems

• Experience building real-time systems, including streaming/event-driven architectures, NoSQL database design, and caching strategies

• Hands-on experience building large-scale REST, gRPC, or GraphQL microservices and applications in cloud-hosted environments (AWS preferred)

• Strong experience operating and troubleshooting production systems, including monitoring, observability, and debugging

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience building or integrating AI-powered applications, including LLMs, RAG pipelines, or agentic AI systems

• Experience with search and retrieval systems, including relevance ranking, vector databases, embeddings, or AI/semantic search

• Experience building large-scale advertising systems, including ranking, auctions, bidding, and budget management

• Familiarity with ML/AI platforms or inference services

• Background in ads, marketplaces, e-commerce, or travel platforms

The total cash range for this position in Seattle is $146,000.00 to $204,500.00. Employees in this role have the potential to increase their pay up to $233,500.00, which is the top of the range, based on ongoing, demonstrated, and sustained performance in the role.

The total cash range for this position in San Jose is $157,500.00 to $220,500.00. Employees in this role have the potential to increase their pay up to $252,000.00, 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.