Principal Product Manager - Answer Engine Optimization (AEO)

Expedia Group brands power global travel for everyone, everywhere. We design cutting-edge tech to make travel smoother and more memorable, and we create groundbreaking solutions for our partners. Our diverse, vibrant, and welcoming community is essential in driving our success. Why Join Us? To shape the future of travel, people must come first. Guided by our Values and Leadership Agreements, we foster an open culture where everyone belongs, differences are celebrated and know that when one of us wins, we all win. We provide a full benefits package, including exciting travel perks, generous time-off, parental leave, a flexible work model (with some pretty cool offices), and career development resources, all to fuel our employees' passion for travel and ensure a rewarding career journey. We’re building a more open world. Join us. 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. Expedia Group is proud to offer a wide range of benefits to support employees and their families, including medical/dental/vision, paid time off, and an Employee Assistance Program. To fuel each employee’s passion for travel, we offer a wellness & travel reimbursement, travel discounts, and an International Airlines Travel Agent ( IATAN ) membership. View our full list of benefits . Accommodation requests If you need assistance with any part of the application or recruiting process due to a disability, or other physical or mental health conditions, please reach out to our Recruiting Accommodations Team through the Accommodation Request . We are proud to be named as a Best Place to Work on Glassdoor in 2024 and be recognized for award-winning culture by organizations like Forbes, TIME, Disability:IN, and others. Expedia Group's family of brands includes: Brand Expedia®, Hotels.com®, Expedia® Partner Solutions, Vrbo®, trivago®, Orbitz®, Travelocity®, Hotwire®, Wotif®, ebookers®, CheapTickets®, Expedia Group™ Media Solutions, Expedia Local Expert®, CarRentals.com™, and Expedia Cruises™. © 2024 Expedia, Inc. All rights reserved. Trademarks and logos are the property of their respective owners. CST: 2029030-50 Employment opportunities and job offers at Expedia Group will always come from Expedia Group’s Talent Acquisition and hiring teams. Never provide sensitive, personal information to someone unless you’re confident who the recipient is. Expedia Group does not extend job offers via email or any other messaging tools to individuals with whom we have not made prior contact. Our email domain is @expediagroup.com. The official website to find and apply for job openings at Expedia Group is . 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.