Machine Learning Scientist II

About Us: At Booking.com, data drives our decisions. Technology is at our core. And innovation is everywhere. But our company is more than datasets, lines of code or A/B tests. We're the thrill of the first night in a new place. The excitement of the next morning. The friends you encounter. The journeys you take. The sights you see. And the memories you make. Through our products, partners and people, we make it easier for everyone to experience the world.

Role Description: As a Machine Learning Scientist at Booking.com, you will work on both classic and cutting-edge machine learning tasks, either independently or as part of a multi-disciplinary product team. You will be building, training, and deploying machine learning models using techniques like causal inference, uplift modelling, and optimization and conduct detailed data analysis to improve data quality and evaluate model performance. Collaboration with machine learning engineers is essential to ensure models meet product and engineering requirements and are successfully deployed to production. Engaging in applied research to understand, test, and evolve new models.

We are hiring for this role across a number of key areas, and depending on the team, experience in one or more of the following areas are relevant:

• Recommender systems and ranking - used in areas like accommodation ranking, location-aware recommendations, and even payment-method ranking.
• NLP and LLM/ GenAI-based systems - including multilingual NLP, synthetic data generation for NLP, travel-planning use cases with LLMs, and platform components for embeddings and prompt/context enrichment.
• Computer vision.
• Deep learning.
• Reinforcement learning and multi-armed bandits - for example in bidding optimization and dynamic decision-making problems.
• Analytics / prediction / classical ML - including supervised, semi-supervised, unsupervised, classification, regression, and clustering-style work.

For more insights about the different business units and the scope of their projects and goals, please visit this page.

Key Job Responsibilities and Duties:

• Explore and apply state-of-the-art techniques in multimodal machine learning.
• Train innovative ML models, build algorithms, and engineering approaches to drive business impact.
• Coding skills: ensure implementation of reusable frameworks (clean and scalable code).
• Conduct data analysis with detailed metrics to evaluate model's performance, labels quality, features exploration.
• Work closely with machine learning engineers to ensure the model's latency/throughput meets product requirements and ensure deployment of your model to production.
• Collaborate with multidisciplinary teams: Collaborate with product managers, data scientists, and analysts to understand business requirements and translate them into machine learning solutions.

Qualifications & Skills:

• 3+ years of relevant work experience, involved in the application of Machine Learning to business problems.
• Advanced knowledge and experience in aspects of developing ML models at scale.
• Experience designing and executing end-to-end research and development plans and generating impact through large-scale machine learning model development.
• Masters degree, PhD or equivalent experience in a quantitative field (e.g. Computer Science, Engineering Mathematics, Artificial Intelligence, Physics, etc.).
• Experience on multiple machine learning facets: working with large data sets, model development, statistics, experimentation, optimization, software development.
• Experience collaborating cross functionally in the development of machine learning products (e.g. Developers, UX specialists, Product Managers, etc.).
• Strong working knowledge of Python, Java, Kafka, Hadoop, SQL, and Spark or similar technologies. Working experience with version control systems.
• Excellent English communication skills, both written and verbal.

Benefits & Perks - Global Impact, Personal Relevance:

Booking.com's Total Rewards Philosophy is not only about compensation but also about benefits. We offer a competitive compensation and benefits package, as well unique-to-Booking.com benefits which include:

• Annual paid time off and generous paid leave scheme including: parent, grandparent, bereavement, and care leave
• Hybrid working including flexible working arrangements, and up to 20 days per year working from abroad (home country)
• Industry leading product discounts - up to 1400 per year - for yourself, including automatic Genius Level 3 status and Booking.com wallet credit
• 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 travelers worldwide
• Working in a fast-paced and performance driven culture
• Opportunity to utilize technical expertise, leadership capabilities and entrepreneurial spirit
• Promote and drive impactful and innovative engineering solutions
• Technical, behavioral 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

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) at Booking.com:

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion have been a core part of our company culture since day one. This ongoing journey starts with our very own employees, who represent over 140 nationalities and a wide range of ethnic and social backgrounds, genders and sexual orientations.

Take it from our Chief People Officer, Paulo Pisano: "At Booking.com, the diversity of our people doesn't just build an outstanding workplace, it also creates a better and more inclusive travel experience for everyone. Inclusion is at the heart of everything we do. It's a place where you can make your mark and have a real impact in travel and tech."

We ensure that colleagues with disabilities are provided the adjustments and tools they need to participate in the job application and interview process, to perform crucial job functions, and to receive other benefits and privileges of employment.

Application Process:

• Let's go places together: How we Hire
• This role does not come with relocation assistance, therefore candidates must be currently based in the Netherlands in order to be considered.

Booking.com is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace and is an affirmative action employer. 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. We strive to move well beyond traditional equal opportunity and work to create an environment that allows everyone to thrive.

Key Skills

N/A

Pre-Employment Screening

If your application is successful, your personal data may be used for a pre-employment screening check by a third party as permitted by applicable law. Depending on the vacancy and applicable law, a pre-employment screening may include employment history, education and other information (such as media information) that may be necessary for determining your qualifications and suitability for the position.

Client-provided location(s): Amsterdam, Netherlands

Job ID: booking-28792

Employment Type: OTHER

Posted: 2026-04-09T18:39:30