About VacationRenter

VacationRenter is a global travel platform that brings all types of accommodations into one place, making it easy for travelers to find the perfect stay.

From private homes and beachfront villas to city apartments and hotels, VacationRenter offers one of the most extensive selections of properties worldwide and simplifies the entire search experience. Behind the scenes, VacationRenter’s technology analyzes millions of listings and billions of data points to surface the best options for every trip.

Launched out of Wilbur Labs in 2018, VacationRenter quickly became one of the fastest growing travel startups ever, surpassing $1 billion in gross bookings in just two years. The company is led by a team of seasoned travel industry leaders.

About This Role

VacationRenter is seeking a hands-on, data-driven Data Scientist to support the next stage of growth. This role will own the Machine Learning models that drive our business from development to deployment. Key responsibilities include improving on sort and search models to help travelers find their perfect accommodation quickly and efficiently, refining predictive and classification models to estimate cancellations and financial outcomes, and developing new models to choose the perfect images and reviews to show to our customers. Your work will directly improve both customer experience and business performance.

The ideal candidate combines top-notch model development and tuning skills with a startup mindset: pragmatic, ownership-driven, and excited to make a measurable impact. This is a strategic, execution-focused role for someone who can drive Machine Learning initiatives end-to-end and deliver results independently.

Success in this role requires more than strong technical skills. Improved models and engineering must translate into better financial and customer outcomes, so strong business judgment is essential. Identifying the right problems to solve is just as important as the modeling itself. This role is positioned to have a direct and meaningful impact on the business.

This role will report directly to the COO. This is a full-time hybrid position, based in Dallas.

Roles and Responsibilities

Model Development: Design, develop, and implement machine learning models to drive VacationRenter’s sort and search functions, create classification models to predict reservation cancellations, and build predictive models to support pricing strategies
Data Analysis & Feature Engineering: Leverage your business acumen and deep understanding of travel shopping behaviors to identify, engineer, and prioritize the most impactful features that drive model performance
Production Deployment: Collaborate with engineering teams to deploy machine learning models into production, ensuring they perform reliably, scale effectively, and maintain high-quality results
Experimentation & A/B Testing: Design and run controlled experiments to measure and validate the effectiveness and impact of machine learning models
Reporting & Visualization: Develop clear and insightful reports and interactive dashboards to effectively communicate model findings and performance metrics to both technical and non-technical stakeholders
Research & Innovation: Continuously explore and apply the latest advancements in machine learning, AI, and data science to enhance our modeling capabilities and data infrastructure

Minimum Qualifications

5+ years of professional experience in a Data Scientist or Machine Learning Engineer role
Expert-level proficiency in Python, including key machine learning libraries
Solid understanding of statistical modeling, experimental design, and data mining techniques
Demonstrated experience owning the full modeling lifecycle, including ETL, data cleansing, feature engineering, model development, deployment, and ongoing maintenance
Experience with SQL and working with large datasets in a cloud environment, particularly GCP, but demonstrated expertise in other platforms can suffice
Strong communication skills, with the ability to explain complex technical concepts to a diverse audience

Preferred Qualifications and Prior Experience

Experience developing machine learning models within a GCP environment
Familiarity with MLOps practices and tools for deployment, maintenance, and ongoing improvement of models
Experience in the Travel or Financial Services industry

Benefits & Perks

Competitive salary + equity
Top-tier laptop provided
100% company-paid health benefits for base plan coverage, with the option to upgrade to higher-tier plans
401(k) with company match
Unlimited, guilt-free vacation days
Annual wellness stipend (gym + other wellness activities)
Monthly house cleaning stipend
Annual travel allowance
Monthly cell phone & internet usage stipend
Charity donation company match
Employee referral bonus
Team offsites/activities

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