Data Platform Manager

KAYAK; Berlin; Vor Ort; EUR 140.000 - 190.000; Vollzeit

Benefits dieser Stelle

Flexible work policy

Time off to recharge

Volunteer Time Off

Wellness programs

Employee resource groups (ERGs)

Career growth opportunities

Zusammenfassung

KAYAK is seeking an Engineering Manager to lead the development and evolution of its shared data platform from Berlin, guiding architecture and technical direction while hands-on tackling core platform challenges.

You will own the roadmap, build a high-performing Berlin-based team, and drive platform modernization across ingestion, storage, and governance with a focus on reliability and cost-effectiveness.

Qualifikationen

• 8+ years of experience in data engineering, platform engineering, data architecture, or a related role.
• Meaningful people-management experience and a high technical bar.
• Led platform migrations or infrastructure modernization efforts with strong judgment on risk, reliability, cost, and business continuity.
• Hands-on experience with technologies relevant to KAYAK’s stack (Kafka, Flink, Iceberg, Trino, AWS, Kubernetes, Airflow, Python, SQL).

Aufgaben

• Own the roadmap for KAYAK’s shared data platform.
• Lead and develop a Berlin-based team of data platform engineers.
• Evolve platform architecture across ingestion, storage, orchestration, runtime, and lakehouse foundations.
• Build core capabilities such as schema registry, data contracts, observability, metadata, and semantic layer implementation.
• Enforce data retention policies and platform controls for different data types and usage needs.
• Improve platform reliability by building tooling for monitoring, alerting, incident response, and operational readiness.
• Drive platform modernization and simplify legacy systems where it creates value.
• Define ownership boundaries so the platform team owns shared infrastructure and raw data quality.

Kenntnisse

Platform modernization

Large-scale data platform architecture

People management

Stakeholder influence

Cross-functional collaboration

Ownership and systems thinking

Hands-on leadership

Tools

Kafka

Flink

Iceberg

Trino

AWS

Kubernetes

Airflow

Python

SQL

Schema-based data contracts

Jobbeschreibung

KAYAK is seeking an Engineering Manager to lead the development and evolution of its shared data platform in a hands-on technical leadership role

This is a senior, hands-on leadership role

You will lead a Berlin-based team, set technical direction, make key architecture decisions, and get directly involved in the hardest platform and reliability problems

The team owns shared data infrastructure and raw data quality foundations, including ingestion, storage, orchestration, runtime, and platform governance

You will work closely with Engineering, Data Science, Data Engineering, Operations, Security, and Product partners to build a scalable, trusted, and cost-effective platform for analytics, reporting, experimentation, and machine learning

Own the roadmap for KAYAK’s shared data platform

Lead and develop a high-performing Berlin-based team of data platform engineers

Evolve the platform architecture across ingestion, storage, orchestration, runtime, and lakehouse foundations

Build core capabilities such as schema registry, data contracts, observability, metadata, and semantic layer implementation

Enforce data retention policies and platform controls for different data types and usage needs

Improve platform reliability by building the tooling and platform capabilities needed for monitoring, alerting, incident response, and operational readiness

Drive platform modernization and simplify legacy systems where it creates clear value

Define clear ownership boundaries so the platform team owns shared infrastructure and raw data quality, while downstream teams own business logic

Benefits

• Work flexibly: Our global flexible work policy lets our teams decide if they head into one of our offices or work from anywhere else
• Team-wide time off: Most of our team disconnects at the same time each year to recharge and reconnect
• Global volunteer week: Take VTO (Volunteer Time Off) to support the organizations and charitable efforts you believe in
• Wellness: We take care of each other - providing opportunities and spaces to live that work-life balance
• Resource groups: Our five ERGs are employee-led groups for underrepresented communities and their allies
• Career growth: We provide opportunities for our team to develop their skills – or learn new ones – on their own terms

• You have led platform migrations or infrastructure modernization efforts with strong judgment on risk, reliability, cost, and business continuity
• You have hands-on experience with technologies relevant to KAYAK’s stack, such as Kafka, Flink, Iceberg, Trino, AWS, Kubernetes, Airflow, Python, SQL, and schema-based data contracts
• You have strong knowledge of large-scale data platform architecture, including streaming, batch, storage, orchestration, and distributed query engines
• You have 8+ years of experience in data engineering, platform engineering, data architecture, or a related role
• You have meaningful people-management experience and a high technical bar
• You bring high ownership, sound judgment, systems thinking, and the ability to influence senior stakeholders
• You are comfortable working across Engineering, Data Science, Data Engineering, Operations, Security, and Product on technically complex topics
• You have led platforms with high-throughput event streams and large-scale analytical data