Senior Backend Engineer - Lodging and Cars
Backend Engineer · Senior · Full Time · Remote
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Role
What you'll do.
Join Hopper's Lodging and Cars Supply team as a Senior Backend Engineer, scaling a global hotel and cars ecosystem processing high-volume, real-time transactions through a complex microservices architecture. You'll execute end-to-end technical integrations with lodging and car partners, write performant Scala/JVM code for mission-critical services, and own the complete development lifecycle from implementation to production deployment. This role is ideal for a self-directed engineer with strong distributed systems expertise, proven microservices experience, and a passion for building reliable, low-latency booking fulfillment systems in a remote-first, fast-growing travel fintech environment.
Responsibilities
- End-to-End Integration Development: Execute comprehensive technical integrations with external lodging, car rental, and GDS (Global Distribution System) partners by navigating complex communication protocols, API specifications, and distributed data schemas to ensure seamless third-party ecosystem connectivity.
- High-Performance Backend Development: Write clean, maintainable, and performant code in Scala or other JVM languages (Java, Kotlin) to build, maintain, and evolve mission-critical lodging and cars services that handle high-throughput transactions and meet rigorous engineering standards.
- Production Issue Resolution: Explore and troubleshoot complex distributed system codebases to identify root causes of production issues, implement fixes, and optimize infrastructure performance across the microservices architecture handling global booking traffic.
- Cross-Functional Collaboration: Partner with Product Managers, Operations teams, and business stakeholders to decompose business requirements into well-scoped technical tasks, provide accurate delivery estimates, and align engineering solutions with commercial objectives.
- Feature Ownership and Deployment: Take full end-to-end ownership of new product features including technical design, implementation, comprehensive testing, quality assurance, and production deployment with monitoring and observability in place.
- System Design and Resilience: Contribute to the architectural design of highly resilient, low-latency microservices and distributed systems that maintain peak performance under sustained high load while ensuring seamless customer booking experiences globally.
- Code Review and Optimization: Participate in thorough code reviews across the team, identify opportunities to improve scalability, performance, and system health, and mentor junior engineers on distributed systems best practices and production-ready code patterns.
Qualifications
What we look for.
Technical
Scala or JVM Languages Proficiency
Expert-level proficiency in Scala, Java, or Kotlin with demonstrated experience building scalable, high-throughput backend services that handle millions of transactions and process distributed data at scale.
Microservices Architecture Experience
Proven track record of designing, implementing, testing, and deploying features within microservices architectures, including service decomposition, inter-service communication patterns, and distributed system coordination.
Distributed Systems and Service Communication
Practical hands-on experience with distributed systems design patterns, service communication protocols including gRPC, REST APIs, and asynchronous messaging systems like Pub/Sub, with understanding of consistency, reliability, and failure modes.
Production Systems Debugging
Ability to navigate, explore, and troubleshoot large, complex codebases in production environments, identify performance bottlenecks, and implement optimizations in real-time transaction processing systems.
Full Development Lifecycle Ownership
Demonstrated capability to own technical implementation, write comprehensive test coverage, manage CI/CD pipelines, and drive features from design through production deployment with monitoring and incident response.
Education
Computer Science or Related Field
Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or related technical field, or equivalent professional experience demonstrating deep systems-level knowledge and engineering problem-solving capabilities.
Experience
Senior Backend Engineering Experience
Minimum 6-8 years of professional software engineering experience with at least 3-4 years in senior-level backend engineering roles, including shipping production systems and owning critical services at scale.
High-Volume Transaction Processing
Experience building and maintaining backend systems that process high-volume, real-time transactions in sectors such as fintech, travel, e-commerce, or marketplaces with focus on reliability, performance, and data consistency.
Third-Party Integration and API Development
Proven experience designing and implementing integrations with external partners, building robust APIs, handling edge cases in distributed systems, and managing complex data synchronization across multiple systems.
Cross-Functional Technical Leadership
Track record of collaborating effectively with Product, Operations, and other engineering teams, translating business requirements into technical solutions, providing accurate estimates, and driving projects to completion in ambiguous environments.
Skills
Required
Scala/JVM Languages
Deep expertise in Scala, Java, or Kotlin for building performant backend services and systems programming in JVM ecosystems.
Microservices Architecture
Hands-on experience designing, building, and deploying microservices with strong understanding of service boundaries, communication patterns, and distributed system tradeoffs.
Distributed Systems
Solid foundation in distributed system principles including eventual consistency, fault tolerance, load balancing, and understanding of CAP theorem and its practical implications.
gRPC and REST API Development
Practical experience building and consuming both gRPC and REST APIs with understanding of protocol buffers, serialization, and API design principles for system integration.
Asynchronous Messaging and Pub/Sub
Hands-on experience with event-driven architectures, message queues, publish-subscribe patterns, and asynchronous communication in distributed systems.
Production System Debugging
Strong ability to diagnose and resolve issues in production environments including log analysis, profiling, tracing, and performance optimization techniques.
Testing and Quality Assurance
Expertise in writing comprehensive unit tests, integration tests, contract tests, and end-to-end tests; familiarity with testing frameworks and strategies for ensuring reliability in microservices.
SQL and Data Design
Strong foundation in relational database design, SQL optimization, and understanding of data consistency patterns relevant to high-volume transaction processing systems.
Preferred
Travel Tech or Travel Industry Experience
Nice to havePrior experience working in travel technology, travel platforms, or travel commerce environments with understanding of booking systems, inventory management, and traveler-facing applications.
Fintech Systems Knowledge
Nice to haveExperience with financial technology platforms, payment processing, or fintech product integration; understanding of financial data handling and regulatory compliance considerations.
GDS (Global Distribution System) Integration
Nice to haveKnowledge of hotel and car rental GDS platforms, inventory systems, and experience integrating with global travel distribution networks.
NoSQL Databases
Nice to haveExperience with NoSQL databases such as MongoDB, DynamoDB, or Cassandra for handling distributed data at scale and understanding when to apply NoSQL solutions.
Kubernetes and Container Orchestration
Nice to haveFamiliarity with Docker, Kubernetes, and modern containerized deployment strategies for managing microservices at scale in cloud environments.
Observability and Monitoring
Nice to haveExperience implementing distributed tracing, metrics collection, and logging strategies using tools like Datadog, Prometheus, or ELK stack for production system visibility.
Infrastructure as Code
Nice to haveFamiliarity with Infrastructure as Code practices using Terraform, CloudFormation, or similar tools for managing cloud infrastructure and deployment automation.
Tech stack
Languages
Frameworks
Databases
Tools
Other
Compensation
Pay and benefits.
Base·CAD 220,000 – 300,000
Equity·Stock options
Benefits
Pre-IPO Equity Package
Competitive equity compensation with meaningful upside potential as a well-funded startup, offering significant financial opportunities alongside base salary.
Comprehensive Health Insurance
100% premium coverage for group insurance plan including medical, dental, and vision benefits for employees.
Life and Disability Coverage
Comprehensive life insurance, short-term disability, and long-term disability coverage to protect financial security for you and your family.
Health Savings Account (HSA)
Tax-advantaged HSA that covers eligible medical and dental expenses with employer contributions to maximize healthcare savings.
Telemedicine Services
Access to Dialogue's telemedicine platform for all employees and dependents, providing anytime, anywhere virtual healthcare and mental health support.
RRSP Retirement Plan
Registered Retirement Savings Plan with automatic pre-tax withdrawals per pay period to support long-term retirement savings and tax efficiency.
Generous Parental Leave
Above-industry-standard parental leave policy supporting work-life balance and family planning for new parents.
Unlimited PTO
Flexible unlimited paid time off policy enabling employees to manage work-life balance and take time off as needed without accrual constraints.
Carrot Cash Travel Stipend
Annual travel stipend enabling employees to explore new destinations and book travel experiences at discounted rates through Hopper's platform.
Flexible Work Arrangements
On-demand access to co-working space through FlexDesk network plus work-from-home stipend to support remote-first working preferences and flexibility.
Entrepreneurial Culture
Dynamic, innovation-focused environment where taking calculated risks and pushing boundaries is encouraged and celebrated across the organization.
Direct Leadership Access
Open communication channels with management and company leadership enabling direct input on strategic decisions and organizational direction.
High-Impact Small Teams
Opportunity to work in lean, dynamic teams where individual contributions directly shape product direction and drive meaningful business outcomes.
Full posting
Original listing.
About the Role
Join the Lodging and Cars Supply team at the heart of our lodging and cars business unit, where you will be instrumental in scaling a global hotel and cars ecosystem that handles high-volume, real-time transactions.
As a senior-level individual contributor, you will navigate a complex microservices environment to deliver reliable booking fulfillment, integrate new lodging and cars partners into our core stack, and optimize system monitoring. This role is designed for a self-directed engineer who excels at system exploration and immediate technical execution within an established, high-growth travel environment.
What would your day-to-day look like
Execute end-to-end technical integrations with external lodgings, cars and GDS partners while navigating complex communication protocols and distributed data schemas.
Write clean, performant code in Scala or other JVM languages to maintain, evolve, and uphold rigorous engineering standards for mission-critical lodging services.
Explore and troubleshoot existing complex codebases to deep-dive into infrastructure and resolve production issues in a distributed system environment.
Partner with Product Managers and Operations to decompose business requirements into technical tasks and estimate delivery timelines.
Take full ownership of the development lifecycle for new product features, from initial technical implementation and testing to production deployment.
Contribute to the design of highly resilient, low-latency services to ensure a seamless booking experience for customers under high load.
Participate in thorough code reviews and identify opportunities to optimize scalability, performance, and system health.
An ideal candidate has
Strong proficiency in Scala or other JVM languages, such as Java or Kotlin, with a focus on building scalable, high-throughput services.
A proven track record of owning the technical implementation, testing, and deployment of features within a microservices architecture.
Practical experience with distributed systems and service communication methods including gRPC, Pub/Sub, and REST.
The ability to onboard quickly and handle technical ambiguity by independently exploring and executing technical plans within existing infrastructure.
Excellent communication skills and a "bias for action" to effectively collaborate with cross-functional squads in a remote-first environment.
A professional curiosity for the travel tech industry and a commercial mindset focused on delivering reliable booking fulfillment.
Perks & benefits of working with us:
Well-funded and proven startup with large ambitions, competitive salary and upsides of pre-IPO equity packages.
Hopper covers 100% of the premiums for group insurance plan.
Hopper offers life, short term and long term disability coverage.
HSA that covers eligible medical and dental expenses.
All employees and dependents have access to Dialogue’s telemedicine services, anytime, anywhere.
All employees have access to an RRSP plan with automatic pre-tax withdrawals per pay.
Please ask us about our very generous parental leave, much above industry standards!.
Unlimited PTO.
Carrot Cash travel stipend.
Access to co-working space on demand through FlexDesk AND Work-from-home stipend.
Entrepreneurial culture where pushing limits and taking risks is everyday business.
Open communication with management and company leadership.
Small, dynamic teams = massive impact.
More about Hopper
At Hopper, we are on a mission to become the leading travel platform globally – powering Hopper’s mobile app, website and our B2B business, HTS (Hopper Technology Solutions). By leveraging massive amounts of data and advanced machine learning algorithms, Hopper combines its world-class travel agency offering with proprietary fintech products to bring transparency, flexibility and savings to travelers globally. We have developed several unique fintech solutions that address everything from pricing volatility to trip disruptions – helping people travel better and save more on their trips.
The Hopper platform serves hundreds of millions of travelers globally and continues to capture market share around the world. he Hopper app has been downloaded over 120 million times and has become largely popular among younger travelers – with 70% of its users being Gen Z and millennials.
While everyone knows us as the Gen Z and Millennial travel app, Hopper has evolved to become much more than that. In recent years, we’ve grown into a travel fintech provider, commerce platform, and global travel agency that powers some of the world’s largest brands.
Through HTS, our B2B division, the company supercharges its partners’ direct channels by integrating our fintech products on their sites or powering end-to-end travel portals. Today, our partners include leading travel brands like Capital One, Nubank, Air Canada, and many more.
Here are just a few stats that demonstrate the company’s recent growth:
Billions of dollars worth of travel and travel fintech are sold through Hopper and HTS’ channels every year.
Our fintech products – including Cancel for Any Reason and Flight Disruption Assistance – have exceptionally strong CSAT because the terms are always clear, and customers receive instant, no-questions-asked resolutions.
Almost 30% of our app customers purchase at least one fintech product when making a booking; and consumers are 1.6x more likely to repurchase if they add fintech to their booking vs if they booked just travel.
Given the success of its fintech products, Hopper launched a B2B initiative, HTS (Hopper Technology Solutions), which represents more than 75% of the business.
Through HTS, any travel provider (airlines, hotels, banks, travel agencies, etc.) can integrate and seamlessly distribute Hopper’s fintech or travel inventory on their direct channels. As its first HTS partnership, the company partnered with Capital One to co-develop Capital One Travel, a new travel portal designed specifically for cardholders. Other HTS partners include Air Canada, Uber, CommBank, Nubank, Flair Airlines and many more.
Hopper has been named the #1 most innovative company in travel by Fast Company Hopper has been downloaded over 120 million times and continues to have millions of new installs each month. Hopper is now the #3 largest online travel agencies in North America and 70% of our app customers are Gen-Z and millennials travelers.
Hopper has raised over $750 million USD of private capital and is backed by some of the largest institutional investors and banks in the world. HTS is primed to continue its growth as the leading travel ecommerce provider in a $1 trillion online shopping category. The Hopper app and website will also continue to be the preferred travel provider for Gen Z and Millennials.
Come take off with us!
At Hopper, we leverage AI-driven tools to assist our team in efficiently reviewing applications. These tools help us assess qualifications fairly and objectively. By submitting your application, you acknowledge the use of these automated screening technologies.
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