Senior Data Engineer - Accommodations

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 make. The journeys you take. The sights you see. And the food you sample. Through our products, partners and people, we can empower everyone to experience the world.

Role Description: 

This role is based in Amsterdam. The scope of the Accommodation (Tech) team touches all the products that relate to Accommodations, from the platform to the end-user and everything in between. This is the largest and fastest growing department at Booking.com. You will have a chance to help one of the largest travel websites in the world! 

In the Customer-Centric Data (CCD) organization, we prioritize customers over transactions. To achieve this, we create customer-centric data sets that enable us to generate actionable insights around customer behavior. Our data products are used by dozens of teams across the company. We are seeking a Senior Data Engineer to join the engineering team of our Customer Data Platform (CDP). In this role, you will drive the development of key capabilities as per the vision of the platform. The CDP is already used by multiple teams in the organization for accessing and operationalizing user-data for personalization use-cases and will continue to add more use-cases for building user-segments and analytics.

As a Senior Data Engineer, you will be responsible for leading the development of effective and efficient technological solutions for processing and storage of big data. You will drive data engineering strategies, make and iterate technical designs, build and refactor software and data systems, and ensure hands-on implementation and delivery. You will influence, differentiate, and guide business and technology strategies as they relate to data through constant cross-functional interaction. You will ask the right questions to the right people in order to align data strategy with commercial strategy, demonstrating technical expertise and business knowledge.

Key Job Responsibilities and Duties

• Support the data requirements of new and existing solutions by developing scalable and extensible physical data models that can be operationalised within the company’s workflows and infrastructure
• Drive efficiency and resilience by mapping data flows between systems and workflows across the company
• Ensure standardization by following design patterns in line with global and local data governance requirements
• Support real time internal and customer facing actions by developing efficient and scalable real time event based streaming data pipelines and/or data ingestion solutions
• Enable large scale data processing (extraction, transformation, migration, etc) by developing efficient batch processing solutions
• Develop solutions for validating values and schemas to ensure data accuracy and reliability
• Drive high value data by connecting different disparate datasets from different systems into a well managed unified solution
• Own end to end data and data applications by defining, monitoring and adjusting relevant SLIs and SLOs
• Handle, mitigate and learn from incidents in a manner that improves the overall system health
• Ensure accuracy by developing criteria, automation, and processes for data production, transport, transform, and storage
• Ensure compliance with data related requirements by building solutions in line with all applicable standards and regulations
• Ensure ongoing resilience of data processes by monitoring system performance and acting proactively identifying bottlenecks, potential risks, and failure point that might degrade overall quality
• Build software applications by using the relevant development languages and applying in depth knowledge of the systems, services and tools used by the specific business area
• Write readable and reusable code by applying standard patterns and using standard libraries; then continuously refactor/evolve according to requirements.
• Continuously evolve your craft by keeping up to date with the latest developments in data engineering and related technologies, introducing them to the community and promoting their application in areas where they can generate impact.
• Actively contribute to Data Engineering at Booking.com through training, exploration of new technologies, interviewing, onboarding and mentoring colleagues.
• Push for improvements, scaling and extending data engineering tooling and infrastructure, collaborating with central teams.
• Autonomously deliver business impact across a team, delivering capabilities or technical systems. You are an expert at identifying the right solutions to solve ambiguous problems that require tough prioritization.
• You are a strong technical leader within the team while your impact extends outside the team as you work across teams to ensure the right solution is in place.

Role Qualifications and Requirements

• 7+ years of experience in a software/data engineering or related field using server side programming languages, preferably Scala, Java or Python.
• 4+ years of experience in building custom ETL pipelines & streaming solutions at scale with big data tools and databases, e.g. Hadoop, Spark, Kafka, Cassandra, HBase, DynamoDB, etc.
• 2+ years of experience in Cloud Computing & DevOps technologies e.g. Kubernetes, AWS, Helm, Docker, Terraform.
• 2+ years of experience in data modeling, schema management, data encoding formats.
• Strong knowledge of data quality requirements and implementation methodologies.
• Bachelor's or Master’s degree in Computer Science or related technical field.
• Excellent English communication skills, both written and verbal.

Additionally, you are a role model of the Booking.com values;

• Thrive on change and get things done
• Demand a high standard of excellence in their craft
• Embrace the opportunity to improve
• Understand success starts with accountability and ownership
• Care more about being successful and reaching goals together than individually
• Curious, experiments and continuously learns
• Humble, open, friendly and remembers that diversity gives us strength

Benefits & Perks: Global Impact, Personal Relevance

• Annual paid time off and generous paid leave scheme including: parental (22-weeks paid leave), grandparent, bereavement, and care leave
• Hybrid working including flexible working arrangements, working from home furniture and ergonomic support, and up to 20 days per year working from abroad (home country)
• A beautiful sustainable HQ Campus in Amsterdam, that offers on-site meals, coffee, and snacks, multi-faith and breastfeeding rooms at the office*
• Commuting allowance and bike reimbursement scheme
• Discounts & Wallet credits to spend on our products, upgrade to Booking.com Genius Level 3, and friends & family Booking.com discount vouchers
• Free access to online learning platforms, development and mentorship programs
• Global Employee Assistance Program, free Headspace membership

DEI: Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at Booking.com

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) have been a core part of our company culture since day one. This ongoing journey starts with our very own employees, who represent over 140 nationalities and a wide range of ethnic and social backgrounds, genders and sexual orientations. 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.

We will ensure that individuals with disabilities are provided reasonable adjustments to participate in the interview process. Please contact us to request adjustments.

Career Development Opportunities

• Bi-annual performance conversations, company-wide mentoring program, and internal development opportunities
• Unlimited access to online learning platforms: Udemy, Coursera, LinkedIn learning, O'reilly

Application Process

• The interview process entails: an online Coding challenge, a coding interview, a system design interview, and a final behavioral interview
• Full relocation support will be offered for you and your family (if the case) to move to Amsterdam - one of the most cosmopolitan cities in Europe