Senior Lead Software Engineer, Back End (Singapore-based)

Agoda; Singapore; On-site; SGD 120,000 - 160,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading online travel agency in Singapore is on the lookout for a Senior Lead Software Engineer to drive the technological evolution of their back-end systems. This role involves architecting and optimizing scalable solutions while collaborating cross-functionally. Successful candidates will have over 10 years of experience in engineering roles, strong programming skills in languages such as Kotlin and Scala, and the ability to communicate complex technical details effectively. Join a diverse team making impactful contributions in the travel industry.

Qualifications

• Overall experience of 10+ years in engineering roles.
• Proven hands-on experience with owning production services with significant impact.
• Curiosity and staying updated on technological improvements.
• Can perform deep research on complex projects.

Responsibilities

• Architecting and developing highly scalable back-end systems.
• Enabling impactful collaboration on large projects.
• Providing thoughtful feedback and nurturing an inclusive environment.
• Identifying and implementing opportunities for optimization.

Skills

Strong programming skills in languages such as Kotlin

Programming in Scala

Experience in Java

Experience in C#

Strong communication skills

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science

Tools

Kubernetes

CI/CD

Job description

Senior Lead Software Engineer, Back End (Singapore-based)

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.

Get to Know our Team: In Agoda’s Back End Engineering department, we build the scalable, fault‑tolerant systems and APIs that host our core business logic. Our systems cover all major areas of our business: inventory and pricing, product information, customer data, communications, partner data, booking systems, payments, and more. These mission‑critical systems change frequently with dozens of releases per day, so we must employ state‑of‑the‑art CI/CD and testing techniques in order to make sure everything works without any downtime. We also ensure that our systems are self‑healing, responding gracefully to extreme loads or unexpected input. In order to accomplish this, we use state‑of‑the‑art languages like Scala and Go, data technologies like Kafka and Aerospike, and agile development practices. Most importantly though, we hire great people from all around the world and empower them to be successful. Whether it’s building new projects like Flights and Packages or reimagining our existing business, you’ll make a big impact as part of the Back End Engineering team.

The Opportunity: As a senior lead/principal engineer at Agoda, you will drive the technological evolution of our front‑end systems. You will be responsible for architecting, implementing, and optimizing user interfaces that enhance the user experience for millions of travelers worldwide. This position requires a deep understanding of back‑end development principles, a passion for crafting exceptional user experiences, and expertise in various back‑end technologies.

In this role, you’ll get to:

• Architecting and developing highly scalable, mission‑critical back end systems
• Owning a big chunk of Agoda’s system all the way from the north‑star & vision down to the bytecode level
• Enabling impactful collaboration and cross‑team projects on big projects, making a dent in the quality of our services, code & architecture
• Providing thoughtful feedback, nurture an inclusive engineering environment, and champion engineering fundamentals. Bring out the best from your fellow engineers.
• Identifying and implementing opportunities for optimization across the technology stack, focusing on cost, efficiency, velocity & dev happiness
• Exhibiting technical leadership throughout the broader organization, conveying complex technical trade‑offs to non‑techies such as business owners & C‑suite executives.

What you’ll Need to Succeed:

• Overall experience of 10+ years in engineering roles
• Proven hands‑on experience with owning production services with significant impact on design, development, deployment, monitoring & evolution
• Curiosity, staying updated on technological improvements and open source advancement.
• Strong programming skills in languages such as Kotlin, Scala, Java, C#.
• Can perform deep research & take decisions on complex projects. Can easily toggle between running as a lone wolf and also works great as part of a pack
• Strong communication skills, with the ability to explain complex technical details to stakeholders at all levels.
• On top of being an expert in BE, has understanding of challenges and trade‑offs in the entire engineering universe, from FE/Mobile to Data 7 analytics
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field.

It’s great if you have:

• A Master's or Ph.D. in a technical field
• Experience with Kubernetes for effective container orchestration and scaling
• Deep understanding of CI/CD pipelines, automation tools, and practices relevant to machine learning.
• Experience in programming with Rust, C or other low level languages

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.

Wewill 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.