Staff Applied AI Engineer (Remote)

Remote - United States

Hotel Engine is a Denver-based travel tech company on a mission to radically simplify trip management for businesses. We’re not a cumbersome travel management company, nor an online price aggregator. We’re a powerful network that brings hotels and businesses together. Our members save time, money and effort in managing their lodging programs, and our partners get access to loyal, high-value business travelers. It’s a true win-win. Following a 2021 series B funding round at a $1.3 billion valuation, we achieved remarkable growth in 2023. We expect 2024 to be our best year yet. 

Across our organization, we’re powered by exceptional talent. From our large Engineering and Product teams to Sales, Supplier Relations, Member Support, Data, Marketing and Operations, our team is forward-thinking, data-driven and customer-obsessed. We’re also a lot of fun — one of the many reasons we were named a Best Place to Work by Built In Colorado for the past four consecutive years. 

We value our individuality, and we also understand that together, we thrive. Most importantly, we know we’re not for everyone! Complacency doesn’t live here. We’re focused on finding the right people who are energized by our culture and bring diverse experiences and backgrounds that will help us unlock our full potential. Click here to view our DNA, and if you like what you see, please read on!

Responsibilities:

• Define machine learning problem spaces for Products and Ops that must leverage frontier Machine learning research, Open-source contributions.
• Rapid prototype of Generative and Discriminative ML end points, autonomous agents etc that must leverage frontier Machine Learning towards a credible solution.
• Define signals roadmap and Collaborate with Data Engineering for signals ingestion planning.
• Own third-party signals/data identification and ingestion strategy. Contribute to platform signals/data acquisition strategy and roadmap that are required for ML prototypes and systems build.
• Contribute to organization’s Machine learning infrastructure stack selection, technical benchmarking, and fit to purpose.
• Contribute to AI end point onboarding by collaborating with Software Engineering, and Platforms scaling teams.
• Engage Business and Tech leadership on frontier machine learning frontier, paradigms and applications to platform/product and Business operations/shared services.
• Represent organization in AI technology and industry forums.
• Partnering with stakeholders across product, engineering, data science, finance, sales, and marketing to define problem spaces that have advanced ML as their potential solution space.
• Support data models discussions and data integration strategy.
• QA ETL data pipeline infrastructure for relevant experiment & production targets.

Requirements:

• Masters/PhD in Computer science with focus on AI. Alternately Masters/Ph.D. in data analytics heavy fields e.g., Physics, Statistics, Computational Math.
• 8+ years Machine learning work experience – work, education and/or pro bono in building hypothesis and improvising on prototypes.
• Equal comfort with Discriminative and Generative AI systems modelling, training and maturing to experimental success. Demonstrable proof of work on structured data and unstructured data-based machine learning systems. Conceptual knowledge of Multi-modal machine learning is desirable.
• Conceptual knowledge & ability to bootstrap & scale machine learning systems for both training and inference purposes.
• Knowledge & desire to leverage open-source models, university works & open-source community best practices.
• Knowledge of one public cloud Machine learning training and serving infra stack
• Able to have bi-directional in-depth technical discussions with organization non-Machine learning audience e.g., software engineers & product managers, operations, leaders etc.
• Ability and desire to mentor Software engineers to Machine learning.

Attributes:

• Learning Machine. Papers, Conferences, Peers, Learning by Doing engine.
• Bias for action and impact
• Excellent interpersonal & communication skills.
• Heavy networker in global Machine Learning community.
• Balance
• technical and business dimensions
• immediate, mid, long term problem sets
• technical and non-technical stakeholders
• Analytical thinker with a problem-solving mindset.
• Challenger – the why? The why not?
• Team player who can collaborate effectively with cross-functional teams.

Hotel Engine Total Rewards Philosophy | We recognize that there is more to work than day-to-day responsibilities. Hotel Engine has been recognized on Built-in Colorado’s Best Places to Work list 3 years in a row (2020-2022) for our positive culture and robust growth opportunities.  

As a company, we’re also dedicated to giving back to our greater community, and have comprehensive corporate social responsibility programs supporting community, social justice and environmental causes. In addition to a collaborative, high-performing team environment, we’re pleased to offer benefits including:   

• Competitive base salaries  
• Annual performance bonuses 
• Stock options for all associates + performance-based stock options  
• Insurance benefits including medical coverage (with a plan available at no cost to employees) + 100% paid dental and vision insurance  
• 401(k) plan with a match program
• Unlimited PTO + 2 paid days each year to volunteer with your favorite non-profit 
• Paid parental leave and family medical leave 
• Hotel discounts through our exclusive platform 
• The ability to make a real impact in an incredibly fast-growing organization; you’ll never be just another cog in the wheel.