Senior Backend Engineer - Lodging and Cars

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.

   

Engagement Status: Independent Contractor

Note on Contractual Status 🇮🇪: This position is offered as an Independent Contractor engagement (Contract for Services) and does not constitute an offer of direct employment. The successful candidate will operate as a self-employed individual or through a Personal Service Company (PSC). You will be responsible for your own tax, PRSI, and VAT compliance in accordance with Irish Revenue Commissioners regulations. Engagement is contingent upon providing proof of valid business registration and appropriate professional indemnity insurance.

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!

This role utilizes automated decision-making systems to assess candidate suitability. Under local regulations, you have the right to understand the principal factors used in this assessment, request a correction of your data, or request a human review of any automated decision. To exercise these rights, please contact [email protected].

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