Founding Engineer / Software Engineer

Alexander Chapman Ltd; New York (NY); On-site; USD 140,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

Alexander Chapman Ltd is seeking a Senior Software Engineer to own the core booking API and infrastructure for a high-growth travel tech platform in New York. You will tackle inventory, pricing, reservations, concurrency, and third-party integrations at scale.

You will design stable, versioned APIs, handle retries and idempotency, and evolve the core booking domain across products. Collaboration with Product and Partnerships is essential.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of software engineering experience.
• Backend engineering and distributed systems experience.
• Experience building external APIs or integration platforms.
• Strong understanding of relational databases, concurrency, and asynchronous workflows.
• Ownership of important systems from design through production.
• Strong fundamentals in testing, observability, reliability, and safe deployments.

Responsibilities

• Designing and building stable, versioned APIs for availability, pricing, bookings, changes, and cancellations.
• Building systems that handle retries, idempotency, partial failures, and reconciliation.
• Evolving the core booking domain across products, inventory, pricing, holds, and reservations.
• Building reusable patterns for PMS, POS, and other third-party integrations.
• Improving reliability, observability, testing, and production performance.
• Working with Product, Partnerships, and engineers to translate complex business requirements into scalable systems.

Skills

Backend engineering

Distributed systems

API development

Transactional systems

Databases

Testing & observability

OpenSource/DevOps

Tools

Ruby on Rails

PostgreSQL

Node.js

OpenSearch

AWS

Datadog

MongoDB

REST/OpenAPI

Job description

We’re working with a high-growth travel technology company that is building the infrastructure behind hotel experiences beyond traditional overnight stays. Their platform connects millions of guests with pools, spas, cabanas, events, and other hotel experiences through a growing network of hospitality partners.

They’re now looking for a Senior Software Engineer to take ownership of their core booking API and help build the platform that powers new distribution channels and booking categories.

The Role

This is a highly hands-on role where you’ll be the primary builder for the company’s external API and booking infrastructure. You’ll work on complex problems around inventory, pricing, reservations, concurrency, distributed systems, and third-party integrations.

You’ll be responsible for:

• Designing and building stable, versioned APIs for availability, pricing, bookings, changes, and cancellations
• Building systems that handle retries, idempotency, partial failures, and reconciliation
• Evolving the core booking domain across products, inventory, pricing, holds, and reservations
• Building reusable patterns for PMS, POS, and other third-party integrations
• Improving reliability, observability, testing, and production performance
• Working closely with Product, Partnerships, and other engineers to turn complex business requirements into scalable systems

What They’re Looking For

• 5+ years of software engineering experience or equivalent impact
• Strong backend engineering and distributed systems experience
• Experience building transactional systems, external APIs, or integration platforms
• Strong understanding of relational databases, concurrency, consistency, and asynchronous workflows
• Experience taking ownership of an important system from design through production
• Strong engineering fundamentals around testing, observability, reliability, and safe deployments
• Ruby/Rails is a plus, but not required — strong backend engineers from other stacks are welcome

Experience with marketplaces, reservations, inventory systems, commerce, payments, or third-party booking platforms is particularly relevant.

• Ruby on Rails, Node.js, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, OpenSearch, REST/OpenAPI, AWS, Datadog.