Senior Software Engineer - Policy Platform

Booking.com

7h

About The Position

As a Senior Software Engineer and technical leader, you will architect the foundational infrastructure for our data ecosystem, replacing manual stewardship with high-performance Policy-as-Code solutions. This role sits at the intersection of backend engineering and global governance, challenging you to build a scalable automation engine capable of detecting risks and enforcing protection standards across the enterprise in real-time. You will serve as a primary bridge between multidisciplinary stakeholders and the engineering organization, translating complex privacy requirements into production-grade software. Your mission is to ensure our data platform scales responsibly by engineering the intelligent tools that transform abstract policy into executable, automated code.

Requirements

• Engineering Foundation: 5+ years of experience as a Software Engineer with strong programming skills in at least two server-side languages; Java, Kotlin, Python and NodeJS specific knowledge is an advantage.
• Strategic Data Governance: Expertise in implementing and enforcing governance frameworks (data catalogs, lineage, GDPR/CCPA) at an organizational level, shifting focus from simple compliance to architectural integrity and security.
• Advanced System Architecture: Proven track record of architecting complex, large-scale distributed systems. You define architectural standards and guide teams in designing observable, reliable systems capable of processing high-volume metadata across diverse assets.
• Technical Leadership: Proven experience in owning and leading technical projects, with the ability to partner with non-technical leadership (Legal, Risk) to influence strategy, negotiate complex requirements, and drive alignment on technical solutions.
• Operational Excellence: Demonstrated ability to keep critical systems up and running, with a strong grasp of reliability, troubleshooting, and incident management.
• Business Acumen: Ability to understand the business deeply, grasp and explain complex concepts, and make pragmatic technical decisions.

Responsibilities

• Lead Technical Execution: Combine hands-on coding with ownership of impactful projects while supporting and elevating other team members.
• Drive Business Impact: Solve complex business problems, work cross-functionally, and lead initiatives to improve development processes and unlock new opportunities.
• Architect High-Scale Systems: Design and maintain low-latency services that guarantee performance even when traffic scales to hundreds of thousands of requests per second.
• Ensure Reliability & Quality: Maintain critical system uptime, troubleshoot effectively, profile production applications for bottlenecks, and lead incident management.
• Take initiative to address the larger technical needs of the product you work on and always keep the customer at the center of everything you do.
• Drive successful technical and business-related initiatives that improve productivity, performance, and quality.
• Possess a ‘can do’ attitude, acting proactively to address technical needs rather than reacting to them.
• Act as a humble thought leader who leads by example, gaining respect through actions rather than title.
• Advocate for a collaborative working environment—turning “my ideas” into “our ideas.”
• Proactively share knowledge, mentor, and coach team members to help colleagues grow.
• Contribute to the growth of Booking.com through interviewing, on-boarding, or other recruitment efforts.
• Represent Booking.com values, both within the company and in the external community.

Benefits

• Medical, life, and disability insurance
• Annual paid time off and generous paid leave scheme including: parent, grandparent, bereavement, sick, and care leave.
• Industry leading product discounts for yourself, friends, and family, including automatic Genius Level 3 status.
• Free access to online learning platforms, mentorship programs, and a complimentary Headspace membership.
• Collaborative, friendly and diverse culture.
• Referral Program.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level
• Education Level: No Education Listed