About Us:

HomeAway, based in Austin, Texas, is the world leader in vacation rentals with more than 2 million unique places to stay in 190 countries, and is a part of the Expedia, Inc. family of brands.HomeAway offers an extensive selection of vacation rental homes that provide travelers with memorable experiences and benefits, especially more room to relax, for less than the cost of traditional hotel accommodations. The company also makes it easy for vacation rental owners and property managers to advertise their properties and manage bookings online.

The Opportunity: 

Product Manager, Search & Discovery Platform

Interested in a rare opportunity to help build and grow an online marketplace? Are you a product manager with strong technical skills that is passionate about building great products and customer experiences? HomeAway is an exciting, international, profitable company that is transforming the market to become the world's leading vacation rental marketplace. We are searching for a Product Manager to join HomeAway's Traveler product team to develop and grow our search and discovery platform that powers our core value proposition for helping our travelers find the perfect vacation across HomeAway, VRBO and global HomeAway sites around the world. The ideal candidate is a strategic thinker, analytical, detailed and results-oriented with excellent problem-solving skills and a strong work ethic.
We're looking for a leader with a passion for both product and engineering that has a strong blend of user experience, product and technology skills. The Search & Discovery Platform PM will collaborate closely with traveler front-end teams to design the optimal shopping experience, engineers to deliver a robust product solution that is highly available, performant & scalable, and other internal teams (e.g. Marketplace,Partner Experience, Traffic Acquisition, Analytics) to understand their requirements of the platform. The Search & Discovery Platform PM must have a detailed understanding of HomeAway’s search, filters and query resolution technology stack and the underlying algorithms & data structures.Proficiency with SQL is a must to be successful in this role.

Primary Responsibilities

• Develop, communicate and execute the vision, strategy and roadmap for the Search Platform portfolio, in partnership with key stakeholders including Engineering, Traveler UI, and Marketplace teams to drive higher traveler conversion and more bookings for our partners.
• Lead the Search & Discovery Platform team during preparation and participation in 120-day planning sessions, monthly product reviews, and deep dive workshops.
• Collaborate daily with the Development and Data Science team to ensure project requirements are clearly defined and properly phased to facilitate timely delivery of functionality.
• Evangelize and practice the test and learn methodology to quickly and efficiently identify and evaluate opportunities that will inform the roadmap.
• Conduct competitive analysis and industry research to identify gaps and opportunities that will further inform the product roadmap for our search and geography platform.
• Manage the quality of our filter and query data that powers traveler search results and ensure customer complaints are properly addressed.
• Collaborate across the product management organization to ensure clarity of roles and responsibilities and maximize synergy for cross-cutting initiatives.
• Define, track and report on key metrics to measure effectiveness and drive improvement e.g. feature usage, conversion rates
• Manage resolution of urgent technical issues while communicating changes to business stakeholders.
• Make recommendations regarding policy changes that will enable and support the product vision and roadmap.

Candidate Profile

Required:

• 1-2 years of software product management experience within an agile software development environment or recent college graduate.
• Familiarity utilizing SQL and Hadoop for data analysis to aid business decisions.
• Possess analytical reasoning and ability to boil down end user needs into new product/enhancement ideas and a relevant technical framework.
• Ability to manage large, complex, international projects in an extremely fast-paced environment.
• Proficient in using the scientific method to identify and evaluate solutions to business problems.
• Ability to prioritize with conviction and communicate decisions effectively.
• High level of initiative and desire to create a world-class user experience for our customers.
• BS in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or equivalent technical background.
• Must be willing to travel up to 10% Internationally.

Preferred:

• Hobbyist programmer.
• Experience working with Data Science and using machine learning to analyze and classify data.
• Experience with online A/B testing to drive improvement in customer experience and business results.
• Travel industry experience.

Benefits & Perks:

• Competitive health and insurance benefits
• Competitive salary
• Annual target bonus or commission
• Paid vacation and sick time
• Vacation rental on a yearly basis (taxable benefit)
• Employee Stock Purchase Program
• Free snacks and beverages
• Frequent company update talks with our leadership team
• Free listing on HomeAway.com
• Electronic, adjustable stand-up desk
• Discounted Metro & Rail pass
• Casual dress