Hopper
Senior Backend Engineer - Lodging and Cars
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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 (such as Java or Kotlin) 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 reliable, 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.
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An Ideal Candidate Has
- Strong proficiency in Scala or other JVM languages (e.g., 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, handle technical ambiguity, and independently explore and execute technical plans within existing infrastructure.
- Excellent communication skills and a "bias for action" to effectively collaborate with cross-functional teams in a remote-first environment.
- A professional curiosity for the travel tech industry and a commercial mindset focused on delivering reliable booking fulfillment.
Perks And Benefits Of Working With Us
- Well-funded and proven startup with large ambitions, competitive salary, and pre-IPO equity packages.
- Hopped health coverage: 100% premiums covered for an employee group insurance plan through Vitality Health.
- Smart Pension auto-contributions when you start with Hopper.
- Generous parental leave, significantly above industry standards.
- Co-working space access via FlexDesk and a work-from-home stipend.
- Carrot Cash travel stipend.
- Unlimited paid time off (PTO).
- Entrepreneurial culture, where pushing limits and taking risks is encouraged.
- Open communication with management and company leadership.
- Small, dynamic teams with massive impact.
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More About Hopper
At Hopper, we are committed to becoming the leading travel platform globally, powering:
- Hopper’s mobile app and website.
- Our B2B business, HTS (Hopper Technology Solutions).
Through proprietary machine learning algorithms and advanced data analytics, we combine travel agency offerings with cutting-edge fintech products to deliver:
- Transparency
- Flexibility
- Cost savings
Key Highlights:
- Serves hundreds of millions of travelers globally.
- Our app has been downloaded over 120 million times, catering to 70% Gen Z and millennial travelers.
- We are now the #3 largest OTAs in North America.
Holistic Growth:
Hopper has transitioned beyond a travel app to expand into:
- Fintech solutions (e.g., Cancel for Any Reason, Flight Disruption Assistance).
- A commerce platform and global travel agency.
- B2B integration (HTS) to empower travel partners like Capital One, Air Canada, Uber, Nubank, and Flair Airlines.
Financial and Market Success:
- Movements of billions of dollars in travel and travel-related services annually.
- HTS represents over 75% of our business, highlighting our B2B focus.
- Named the #1 most innovative company in travel by Fast Company.
- GT 500 million USD raised from leading institutional investors.
- Aiming to dominate the $1 trillion online travel market through continuous innovation.
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