Senior Backend Software Engineer

Booking.com; Manchester; On-site; GBP 70,000 - 90,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading travel technology company in the UK seeks a Senior Backend Software Engineer to design and develop scalable systems that impact millions of customers. The ideal candidate should have over 7 years of experience in software engineering, strong programming skills in multiple server-side languages, and a proven track record in incident management. This role emphasizes innovation and collaboration within cross-functional teams to enhance technical architecture and product performance, ideally suited for proactive candidates with leadership experience.

Qualifications

• Minimum 7+ years of experience as a Software Engineer with web applications and distributed systems.
• Strong technical knowledge in building APIs and performance optimization.
• Experience in mentoring, coaching, and training other engineers.

Responsibilities

• Develop highly scalable, flexible, and high-performance systems.
• Solve issues with mobile apps, websites, and internal systems.
• Lead technical discussions and define technical architecture.

Skills

Programming skills in multiple server-side languages

Communication and influence skills

Experience in incident management

Strong knowledge of APIs and performance optimization

Experience with Java, Kubernetes, Kafka, AWS

Job description

Job Title

Senior Backend Software Engineer

About Us

At Booking.com, data drives our decisions. Technology is at our core. And innovation is everywhere. But our company is more than datasets, lines of code or A/B tests. We're the thrill of the first night in a new place. The excitement of the next morning. The friends you encounter. The journeys you take. The sights you see. And the memories you make. Through our products, partners and people, we make it easier for everyone to experience the world.

Role Description

Our mission at Booking.com is to create visionary, innovative, and personalised travel experiences for millions of customers all over the world. Across our offices worldwide, we continue to innovate by solving some of the most complex challenges in travel and technology, and to plan for the exciting developments that lie ahead through strategic long-term investments into what we believe the future of travel can be.

The Order Platform enables Booking.com to place multi-product orders in a fast, reliable, and compliant way. The platform connects with the vertical and the horizontal platforms of the business, allowing them to access data and react to order events fast and seamlessly. This platform orchestrates business processes related to payments and the associated supply providers for each product. It manages the storage and versioning of order data, exposes this data through various retrieval methods, and provides a real-time stream of order changes.

As a Senior Software Engineer within the Order Platform, you have the opportunity to play a hands‑on technical leadership role. You are responsible for designing, building, and evolving core platform components, while guiding the team toward sound technical decisions and strong operational best practices. You work closely with cross‑functional stakeholders to define the technical architecture and to prioritize initiatives that directly support and empower customer‑facing teams.

Key Responsibilities & Duties

• Rapidly developing next‑generation scalable, flexible, and high‑performance systems, with end‑to‑end ownership by monitoring and adjusting SLIs and SLOs.
• Solving issues with the mobile apps, website and internal systems, prioritising based on customer and business impact.
• Acting as an intermediary for problems, with both technical and non‑technical audiences
• A/B Testing; we have thousands of experiments running at the same time, interacting with each other.
• Evaluating customer needs and coming up with ideal solutions for it; assessing different programming languages, architecture, and risks.
• Contributing to the growth of Booking.com through interviewing, on‑boarding, or other recruitment efforts.

Role Qualifications & Requirements

• You are a humble and thought leader, you lead by example and gain your teammates respect through your actions and not your title.
• You have strong programming skills and experience with 2+ server‑side programming languages.
• You have min 7+ years of experience as a Software Engineer, you've worked with web applications, distributed systems and product(s) that impact millions of customers.
• You have a solid understanding of Service Oriented Architecture, Microservices & OOP patterns - and you mastered explaining these concepts to others.
• Having experience with Java, Kubernetes, Kafka, and AWS is a plus.
• You have strong technical knowledge in building APIs and performance optimisation in both service and database level.
• You own your systems end‑to‑end and are comfortable performing incident management.
• You are an excellent communicator and you are able to influence and cooperate with people at all levels.
• You have driven successful technical, business and people related initiatives that improved productivity, performance and quality.
• You have a 'can do' attitude and you act proactively and not reactively.
• It would be great if you have prior experience with mentoring, coaching and training team members

Inclusion at Booking.com

Take it from our Chief People Officer, Paulo Pisano: "At Booking.com, the diversity of our people doesn't just create a unique workplace, it also creates a better and more inclusive travel experience for everyone. Inclusion is at the heart of everything we do. It's a place where you can make your mark and have a real impact in travel and tech."

Read all about DEI and the Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) at Booking.com here

Pre-Employment Screening

If your application is successful, your personal data may be used for a pre‑employment screening check by a third party as permitted by applicable law. Depending on the vacancy and applicable law, a pre‑employment screening may include employment history, education and other information (such as media information) that may be necessary for determining your qualifications and suitability for the position.