Backend Lead Software Engineer (Level 5) | Gurugram based

Agoda; Kolkata District; On-site; INR 3,500,000 - 7,000,000; Full time

Job summary

Agoda is seeking a Lead Backend Engineer to own critical systems and drive technical direction across services powering a global travel platform. You will design scalable architectures, mentor engineers, and collaborate with product and platform teams to deliver reliable, high-performance backend solutions.

You will stay hands-on with code, lead complex initiatives, and help raise the technical bar while ensuring production stability, security, and maintainability across the distributed systems

Qualifications

• 11+ years of experience building and operating large-scale backend systems.
• Proven track record delivering complex distributed systems at scale.
• Strong expertise in Java, Scala, Kotlin, or Go.
• Strong software architecture skills with cross-team influence.
• Proven experience leading technical initiatives and teams with end-to-end ownership.
• Recent hands-on coding experience in production environments is required.

Responsibilities

• Lead architecture, design, and development of distributed backend systems at scale.
• Own technical direction, delivery, and evolution of critical platforms.
• Set API standards and engineering best practices across teams.
• Drive cross-team initiatives and coordinate complex programs.
• Mentor engineers and raise technical capability and code quality.
• Contribute hands-on to production systems while leading initiatives.

Skills

Distributed systems

Java/Scala/Kotlin/Go

System design

Mentoring engineers

Hands-on coding

Cross-team leadership

Tools

Kafka

AWS/GCP

CI/CD

Kubernetes

Job description

About Agoda

At Agoda, we bridge the world through travel. Our story began in 2005, when two lifelong friends and entrepreneurs, driven by their passion for travel, launched Agoda to make it easier for everyone to explore the world. Today, we are part of Booking Holdings [NASDAQ: BKNG], with a diverse team of over 7,000 people from 90 countries, working together in offices around the globe. Every day, we connect people to destinations and experiences, with our great deals across our millions of hotels and holiday properties, flights, and experiences worldwide. No two days are the same at Agoda. Data and technology are at the heart of our culture, fueling our curiosity and innovation. If you’re ready to begin your best journey and help build travel for the world, join us.

Lead and shape backend systems at scale for global travel experiences

Drive technical direction and deliver complex backend systems powering millions of users worldwide.

About The Team

At Agoda, our Backend Engineering organization builds high-scale, fault-tolerant distributed systems that power a global travel platform serving millions of users daily. Our systems span mission‑critical domains including inventory, pricing, booking, payments, and customer/partner platforms. We operate with high availability, low latency, and zero‑downtime expectations, leveraging technologies like Scala, Go, Java, Kotlin, Kafka, and Aerospike, supported by strong practices in CI/CD, automation, and observability, and engineering excellence. We ship fast — with dozens of daily releases — and design systems that are resilient, scalable, and continuously evolving.

The Opportunity

As a Lead Backend Engineer, you will own critical systems end‑to‑end, drive technical direction, and lead large initiatives. You will combine architecture, execution, and technical leadership to build scalable, reliable, and high‑quality solutions that power Agoda's global platform. You will influence engineering decisions beyond your immediate team, mentor engineers, shape development practices, and help raise the organization’s technical bar.

What You’ll Do

• Lead the architecture, design, and development of complex distributed systems at scale.
• Own the technical direction, delivery, and evolution of critical systems and platforms.
• Drive system design, API standards, software architecture, and engineering best practices across teams.
• Lead complex technical initiatives involving multiple services, teams, and stakeholders.
• Make key technical decisions, balancing business priorities with scalability, reliability, and maintainability goals.
• Remain an active contributor to production systems through regular coding, code reviews, system design, and technical problem-solving, balancing hands‑on execution with leadership responsibilities.
• Mentor and coach engineers, helping raise technical capability, code quality, and engineering standards.
• Drive continuous improvements in development processes, engineering effectiveness, and agile ways of working.
• Align stakeholders and drive execution across cross‑functional teams.
• Lead production stability, incident management, root‑cause analysis, and long‑term reliability improvements.
• Proactively identify opportunities to improve products, platforms, developer productivity, and customer experience.

What We’re Looking For

• 11+ Years experience building and operating large‑scale backend systems in production environments.
• Proven experience delivering complex distributed systems at scale.
• Strong expertise in Java, Scala, Kotlin, or Go.
• Strong software architecture skills with a track record of driving architectural decisions within and across teams.
• Proven experience leading technical initiatives, projects, or engineering teams with end‑to‑end ownership.
• Recent and ongoing hands‑on coding experience in production environments is required.

Deep expertise in

• Distributed systems and architecture
• API design and microservices
• Performance, scalability, and system reliability
• System design for high‑throughput, highly available applications

Nice to Have

• Experience building or owning large‑scale platforms across multiple services or domains.
• Experience designing and operating event‑driven architectures using technologies such as Kafka.
• Experience with cloud‑native architectures on AWS or GCP. Strong understanding of CI/CD, DevOps, automation, and modern software delivery practices.
• Experience driving cross‑team technical initiatives, platform modernization, or large‑scale migrations.
• Familiarity with high‑volume data systems, Spark, Hadoop, or related data platform technologies.
• Experience working in global product organizations with distributed engineering teams.

Equal Opportunity Employer

At Agoda, we pride ourselves on being a company represented by people of all different backgrounds and orientations. We prioritize attracting diverse talent and cultivating an inclusive environment that encourages collaboration and innovation. Employment at Agoda is based solely on a person’s merit and qualifications. We are committed to providing equal employment opportunity regardless of sex, age, race, color, national origin, religion, marital status, pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, citizenship, veteran or military status, and other legally protected characteristics. We will keep your application on file so that we can consider you for future vacancies and you can always ask to have your details removed from the file. For more details please read our privacy policy.

Disclaimer

We do not accept any terms or conditions, nor do we recognize any agency’s representation of a candidate, from unsolicited third‑party or agency submissions. If we receive unsolicited or speculative CVs, we reserve the right to contact and hire the candidate directly without any obligation to pay a recruitment fee.