Software Developer III, Auctions Insights - Advertising 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.
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
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 .
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 .
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.