Booking.com
Software Engineer (For independent contractors)

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Software Engineer II
A Software Engineer II owns the execution of technical elements in the Booking.com tech stack, products and processes. They are responsible for the implementation of technical solutions based on business requirements, they can estimate the effort and impact of the items they work on, and show a high quality of craft in what they deliver. A Software Engineer II understands the quality of test automation is as important as the production code and spends time refactoring both to ensure ease of change enabling a sustainable pace of development. Software Engineer II are expected to work together with colleagues in other job roles to design, prioritise and implement technical tasks. Because the required technical skills and commercial knowledge can vary from one business unit to another, a Software Engineer II can focus on multiple types of work from product features to infrastructure automation, frameworks, tooling or services.
Building software applications
- Is responsible to build software applications by using relevant development languages and applying knowledge of systems, services and tools appropriate for the business area
- Is responsible to write readable and reusable code by applying standard patterns and using standard libraries
- Is responsible to refactor and simplify code by introducing design patterns when necessary
- Is responsible to ensure the quality of the application by following standard testing techniques and methods that adhere to the test strategy
- Is responsible to maintain data security, integrity and quality by effectively following company standards and best practices
End to End System Ownership
- Has sufficient knowledge to own a service end to end by actively monitoring application health and performance, setting and monitoring relevant metrics and act accordingly when violated
- Has sufficient knowledge to reduce business continuity risks and bus factor by applying state-of-the-art practices and tools, and writing the appropriate documentation such as runbooks and OpDocs
- Has sufficient knowledge to reduce risk and obtain customer feedback by using continuous delivery and experimentation frameworks
- Has sufficient knowledge to independently manage an application or service by working through deployment and operations in production
Reasons to use Rodeo
I’m in my final year doing Economics and I don’t know whether to apply for grad schemes now or do a masters first. What do you think?
Honest answer — it depends on where you want to end up. A lot of top grad schemes (Big 4, civil service, banking) don’t need a masters. Let’s look at the ones you’d be competitive for now, and we can decide if a masters actually adds anything.
Also worth knowing: most autumn 2026 applications are open now. Timing matters more than you think.
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Grad scheme, placement, apprenticeship? Not sure what you want yet — that's fine. Your agent talks it through with you and turns "I have no idea" into a shortlist.
Graduate Consultant — 2026 Scheme
Why you're a good match
StrongYour economics background and your summer at a regional bank line up with what PwC looks for on the consulting scheme. Applications close in four weeks.
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Every day your agent scans the market matching roles against what actually matters to you, not just keywords on a CV.
Why you're a good match
You’ve got the grades and the economics background, and your bank internship is exactly the experience this scheme looks for. Apply soon — deadlines close within the month.
Experience fit
Your summer at the bank plus your econometrics coursework map directly to the day-one responsibilities on this scheme — client modelling, market briefings, and deal support.
Only hits
No noise. No "maybe this fits." Just roles with a clear explanation of why they're right — and where to focus when applying.
Technical Incident Management
- Is responsible to address and resolve live production issues by mitigating the customer impact within SLA
- Is responsible to improve the overall reliability of systems by producing long term solutions through root cause analysis
- Is responsible to keep track of incidents by contributing to postmortem processes and logging live issues
Architectural Guidance
- Has basic knowledge to advise product teams towards a technical solution that meets the functional, nonfunctional & architectural requirements by challenging the rationale for an application design and providing context in the wider architectural landscape
- Has basic knowledge to set a clear direction for a technical capability by evaluating and aligning the target architecture improvements, reframing architectural designs and decisions for varied stakeholder
Software Systems Design
- Has sufficient knowledge to evaluate possible architecture solutions by taking into account cost, business requirements, technology requirements and emerging technologies
- Has sufficient knowledge to describe the implications of changing an existing system or adding a new system to a specific area, by having a broad, high-level understanding of the infrastructure and architecture of our systems
- Has sufficient knowledge to help grow the business and/or accelerate software development by applying engineering techniques (e.g. prototyping, spiking and vendor evaluation) and standards
- Has sufficient knowledge to meet business needs by designing solutions that meet current requirements and are adaptable for future enhancements


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Critical Thinking
- Is responsible to systematically identify patterns and underlying issues in complex situations, and to find solutions by applying logical and analytical thinking.
- Is responsible to constructively evaluate and develop ideas, plans and solutions by reviewing them, objectively taking into account external knowledge, initiating 'SMART' improvements and articulating their rationale.
Continuous Quality and Process Improvement
- Has sufficient knowledge to identify opportunities for process, system and structural improvements (i.e performance gains) by examining and evaluating current process flows, methods and standards.
- Has sufficient knowledge to design and implement relevant improvements by defining adapted/new process flows, standards, and practices that enable business performance.
Effective Communication
- Is responsible to deliver clear, well-structured, and meaningful information to a target audience by using suitable communication mediums and language tailored to the audience
- Is responsible to achieve mutually agreeable solutions by staying adaptable, communicating ideas in clear coherent language and practising active listening
- Is responsible to ask relevant (follow-up) questions to properly engage with the speaker and really understand what they are saying, by applying listening and reflection techniques
Required Tech Stack
- Java
- Springboot
- AWS
- Grafana
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