Principal Product Manager - Answer Engine Optimization (AEO)

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.

Introduction to the Team

We create and deliver tailored marketing strategies for Expedia Group’s brands, focusing on establishing strong connections and cohesive experiences for travelers and partners. We leverage our functional expertise and creative excellence to build trust and loyalty for our brands through innovative marketing approaches and technology.

Expedia Group is seeking a highly technical, builder-mindset Principal Product Manager to own Answer Engine Optimization (AEO). As AI agents increasingly mediate how travelers discover and choose, AEO has rapidly become a primary channel for reaching them. AEO ensures EG’s brands, supply, and content are surfaced and cited by horizontal AI agents that retrieve and synthesize information on behalf of travelers.

This is a senior individual contributor role, designed for a builder. The Principal PM will own the channel-level thesis, roadmap, technical execution, measurement, and performance outcomes end to end. The role carries a dotted line into a dedicated engineering pod and is empowered to move quickly. This role reports to the Head of Organic & Agentic Search.

In this role, you will:

Channel Strategy & Roadmap

• Own the AEO strategy, roadmap, and outcomes end to end, sequencing investment across the full retrieval stack.

• Map the full AEO journey: from how LLMs are trained and source data, to how live retrieval surfaces select and rank content, to how bots land on EG gateways and assets. Use the journey to identify where intervention compounds.

• Translate the evolving LLM and answer-engine landscape into clear strategic prioritization decisions.

Market Intelligence & Thesis Building

• Monitor the frontier AI ecosystem continuously: model releases, product updates, and roadmap signals from frontier labs and answer-engine platforms.

• Track industry news, academic research, and emerging protocols relevant to retrieval, agent behavior, and answer-engine mechanics.

• Build and maintain a structured point of view on where the answer-engine market is heading, what changes mean for EG, and which shifts demand action versus observation.

• Develop relationships with frontier labs, answer-engine platforms, and AI-native peers to maintain primary-source signal rather than relying on secondary coverage.

• Synthesize research, market signal, and EG’s own data into theses that inform channel strategy, product investment, and the broader organization’s view of agentic search.

Retrieval & Access Optimization

• Drive optimization across the live retrieval path, from web and agent indices through to landing on EG surfaces.

• Identify and pull the high-leverage levers across gateway configuration, filetype strategy, and content structure that govern bot access and comprehension.

• Lead technical enhancements on filetypes, sizes, indexation, bot definitions, permissions, and gateway routing to maximize accessibility for both model training and live retrieval.

• Own optimization of the AEO bot journey end to end.

Measurement & Analytics

• Define and operate the AEO measurement system, including bot crawl analytics, indexation tracking, AI visibility metrics, and downstream traffic and revenue signals.

• Establish leading and lagging indicators that ladder to channel North Star metrics, with rigorous, decision-grade measurement.

• Own AEO performance in internal and external forums, translating technical signal into clear narratives for executive and external audiences.

Product Development & Systemization

• Translate channel learnings into durable products and systems. For example: atomizing pages to better understand bot preferences, or scaling a portfolio of filetypes and routing logic served to different bots.

• Apply a desirability / feasibility / viability lens to rank what to productionalize, recognizing that not every learning warrants a system.

• Lead a dedicated engineering pod via dotted-line authority, using agents and automation to amplify output.

• Continuously monitor LLM and answer-engine platforms for algorithm updates, product changes, and errors that materially impact AEO performance, and lead rapid response when they do.

Executive Communications & Presentations

• Translate complex retrieval mechanics, measurement results, and channel strategy into clear, concise narratives for C-suite, board, and senior cross-functional audiences.

• Produce executive-grade written and visual artifacts: strategy documents, decision memos, performance readouts, and presentations that build conviction and drive decisions.

• Represent AEO in senior internal forums and selected external venues, framing trade-offs and recommendations with the structure and clarity expected at the executive level.

• Operate with strong executive presence: synthesize fast-moving information into a clear point of view and defend it under scrutiny.

Minimum qualifications:

• 10+ years in product management, growth, or technical product leadership, with increasing scope and ownership

• Demonstrated zero-to-one track record: has built and scaled a net-new channel, capability, or product from inception to measurable commercial outcomes, not inherited an existing operation

• Ability to read and reason about LLM training and data sourcing, retrieval-augmented generation, web indices, crawler behavior, structured data, and gateway/CDN configuration well enough to build independently

• Strong measurement and experimentation discipline: has operated a real measurement and experiment system with clear hypotheses, decision criteria, and post-experiment translation into product or marketing changes

• Strong executive communication: clean presentations, executive presence, and the ability to drive alignment across senior cross-functional stakeholders without direct authority

• Comfort with ambiguity, fast cycles, and high-velocity decision making

Preferred qualifications:

• Founder or founder-adjacent experience strongly preferred. Candidates who have started, scaled, or made early-stage investments in AI, search, or platform businesses bring directly transferable pattern recognition

• Deep experience in SEO, AEO, organic growth, retrieval systems, or an analogous technical channel where the lever set is infrastructure, not creative

• Active immersion in the AI and answer-engine ecosystem: built relationships with frontier labs, retrieval platforms, or AI-native startups treated as a meaningful signal of genuine engagement, not just familiarity

The total cash range for this position in Seattle is $224,000.00 to $313,500.00. Employees in this role have the potential to increase their pay up to $358,500.00, 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.

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 https://careers.expediagroup.com/life.

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 https://careers.expediagroup.com/jobs/.

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.