Senior Software Engineer - Full Stack

Tripadvisor; Greater London, Oxford; Remote; GBP 70,000 - 110,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive compensation packages

Remote-friendly collaboration

Flexible schedule

Job summary

Tripadvisor is seeking a Senior Software Engineer to join the Experiences Engineering team. This full-stack role uses Java, SQL, React, AWS, and AI tools to build scalable systems powering travel experiences for millions worldwide.

The position offers a remote-first model with periodic in-person gatherings at offices in London, Oxford, Krakow, or Lisbon. Ideal candidates have 5+ years in distributed systems and a track record of technical leadership and collaboration across teams.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or related field.
• 5+ years of experience in distributed backend systems.
• Strong analytical skills with data-driven decision making.
• Proficient in at least one modern backend language (Java, C#, Go, Python) and frontend frameworks.
• Experience with cloud environments and scalability.
• Knowledge of AI tools and coding in relevant AI frameworks.

Responsibilities

• Lead end-to-end feature design and implementation with security and performance in mind.
• Translate product strategy into concrete technical specs and lead multi-quarter initiatives.
• Mentor and elevate junior engineers; promote code quality and review standards.
• Apply AI tools strategically to plan work, decompose tasks, and improve reliability.
• Define operations strategy and design resilient architectures with automation and monitoring.
• Seek opportunities to simplify and modernize legacy code to boost velocity.

Skills

Distributed Systems

Full-Stack Development

AI integration

Leadership & Collaboration

Analytical mindset

Software Architecture

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science

Tools

Docker

Kubernetes

GraphQL

Kafka

NoSQL databases

Job description

Senior Software Engineer

About Tripadvisor

The Tripadvisor Group connects people to experiences worth sharing, and aims to be the world's most trusted source for travel and experiences. We leverage our brands, technology, and capabilities to connect our global audience with partners through rich content, travel guidance, and two-sided marketplaces for experiences, accommodations, restaurants, and other travel categories. The subsidiaries of Tripadvisor, Inc. (Nasdaq: TRIP), include a portfolio of travel brands and businesses, including Tripadvisor, Viator, and TheFork.

Tripadvisor Experiences Engineering is the team that builds and supports the world's leading marketplace for travel experiences . We believe that making memories is what travel is all about. And with 400,000+ travel experiences to explore-everything from simple tours to extreme adventures (and everything in between) -making memories that will last a lifetime has never been easier.

About the Role

We are looking for a product-focused Senior Software Engineer to join our Experiences Engineering team. This is a full-stack role, leveraging Java, SQL, React, AWS and AI tools . It suits "T-shaped" engineers who thrive on autonomy and technical leadership. You'll build and maintain highly scalable distributed systems that power travel experiences for millions of users globally.

We embrace flexibility in where and how work gets done and also value meaningful in-person moments to connect and collaborate. You can expect a remote-first working model with periodic in-person gatherings at your closest office for team connection, planning, or other key moments. This position is open to candidates based within a commutable distance (generally up to 1.5 hours) of one of our office hubs in London, Oxford, Krakow or Lisbon.

What You'll Do

• Lead Technical Design: Own features end-to-end, leading the design and implementation of highly visible features while balancing security, privacy, and performance.
• Translate Strategy to Action: Work with Product and Data partners to turn high-level business goals into clear technical specifications, often serving as the technical lead for multi-quarter initiatives.
• Elevate the Team: Set the bar for code quality, lead the adoption of review standards, and mentor junior and mid-level engineers.
• Master Agentic AI: Use AI tools as a strategic partner to plan approaches, decompose ambiguous work, and establish new standards for monitoring and reliability.
• Architect for Resilience: Define the operational strategy and design highly fault-tolerant architectures, proactively identifying structural risks and setting the team-wide standards for automation, monitoring, and long-term stability.
• Optimize Systems: Actively look for opportunities to simplify, consolidate, or retire legacy code to reduce complexity and increase team velocity.

Skills & Experience

• We typically look for 5+ years' experience, following a Bachelor's degree or above in Comp Science or a related field.
• Distributed Systems Expertise : Deep understanding of concurrent programming and experience building high-performance, scalable backend systems in cloud environments.
• Analytical Mindset: A habit of asking "how will we know this worked?" and using operational data or experiment results to validate every significant technical decision.
• Full-Stack Proficiency: Strong experience in at least one modern backend language (e.g., Java, C#, Go, Python) and familiarity with modern front-end frameworks.
• AI Coding: you are fluent coding with either Cursor or Codex/Claude/Open Code.
• Navigating Ambiguity: Comfortable making rational tradeoffs between non-functional requirements and delivery speed in an evolving environment.
• Collaborative Leadership: Proven ability to build relationships across disciplines and communicate technical trade-offs to non-technical partners.

We'd love to see experience with NoSQL databases, GraphQL, Kafka, or containerization (Docker/Kubernetes). Experience building tools or abstractions that provide leverage to an entire engineering team is also a significant plus. We don't expect you to know everything on day one. More than any specific tool, we value curiosity and the ability to solve problems creatively.

We value engineers from different technical backgrounds. You can complete our coding interview exercises in any language of your choice, but need to be open to working within the Java ecosystem when you join!

What We Offer

• Competitive compensation packages , including base salary, annual bonus, and more.
• "Work your way" with flexibility to suit your lifestyle. We take a remote-friendly approach to collaboration, with the option to join on-site as often as you'd like in select locations.
• Flexible schedule . Work-life balance is ingrained in our culture by design. Trust and accountability make it work.
• Donation ma