Machine Learning Engineer Manager

KAYAK, Berlin Office

The role

As an employee of KAYAK, you will be part of a travel company that operates a portfolio of global metasearch brands including momondo, Cheapflights and HotelsCombined, among others. From start-up to industry leader, innovation is at our core and every employee has an opportunity to make their mark. Our focus is on building the best travel search engine to make it easier for everyone to experience the world.

KAYAK is seeking a Machine Learning Engineering Manager to lead the development and evolution of its shared Machine Learning Platform. This is a senior, hands-on technical leadership role.

What you will do

Own the strategy and roadmap for KAYAK’s shared Machine Learning Platform, aligning technical investments with business needs and long-term platform evolution.
Lead, mentor, and grow a high-performing Berlin-based team of Machine Learning Platform Engineers, fostering technical excellence, autonomy, and operational accountability.
Drive technical direction across platform architecture and the ML lifecycle, contributing hands-on to high-impact problems and simplifying legacy systems where it creates clear value.
Build and evolve shared ML capabilities, including training orchestration, model serving, feature management, and LLM workflows, improving developer experience and enabling teams to deliver production-ready ML solutions efficiently.
Champion platform reliability and operational excellence, establishing robust monitoring, alerting, incident response, and production-readiness standards.
Define clear ownership boundaries so the platform team owns shared infrastructure and lifecycle tooling, while downstream teams own use-case-specific model and business logic.
Collaborate with Data Science, Engineering, and Operations teams to plan and deliver complex, multi-team initiatives, ensuring clear alignment on scope, dependencies, and timelines.

Please apply if you have

Strong technical foundations in software engineering, machine learning, and systems design, backed by significant hands-on experience building and operating production ML systems, platforms, or infrastructure.
At least 5 years of experience with ML lifecycle systems, including training orchestration, model serving, feature management, and monitoring, with a solid understanding of scalability, reliability, and operational trade-offs.
Meaningful people leadership experience, including hiring, coaching, performance management, and developing experienced technical talent, while maintaining a high technical bar and contributing hands-on where it matters most.
Strong ownership, judgment, and systems thinking, with the ability to balance platform evolution, developer experience, reliability, cost, and technical debt while influencing senior stakeholders.
Ability to lead across organizational boundaries, aligning teams around shared infrastructure, navigating competing priorities, and driving platform adoption through collaboration rather than authority.
Fluency with AI-assisted workflows, leveraging modern tools to improve productivity and quality while critically evaluating their outputs and limitations.
Curiosity, humility, and a collaborative mindset, with a commitment to continuous improvement and the ability to inspire the same in others.

Machine Learning Engineer Manager

The role

Machine Learning Engineer Manager

The role

What you will do

Please apply if you have

Nice to have

Inclusion

Pay and benefits

About KAYAK

Similar jobs at other companies

Staff Machine Learning Engineer

Senior Machine Learning Platform Engineer

AI/ML Engineer, Berlin

Senior Machine Learning Engineer (ML Platform)

Machine Learning Engineering Manager

Machine Learning Engineering Manager (Power)

KAYAK