Staff Backend Software Engineer - Commerce Foundations (100% Remote - Spain)

📋 Description

• • As a Staff Backend Software Engineer on the Commerce Foundations team at Hopper Inc., you will play a pivotal role in architecting and developing the core engine that powers global travel commerce for major brands. This is a unique opportunity to shape the foundational patterns of a highly scalable, resilient, and extensible platform, moving beyond individual features to define the "how" behind booking flows, search orchestration, checkout journeys, and multi-tenant configurations.
• • Your primary responsibility will be to provide technical leadership within a cross-functional team comprising exceptional engineers, designers, and product managers. You will be instrumental in ensuring our commerce engine remains world-class, setting the technical direction and upholding the highest standards of quality and performance.
• • A key aspect of this role involves architectural strategy. You will be tasked with designing the underlying patterns that enable our entire engineering organization to scale effectively. This includes developing robust solutions for complex booking flows, intricate checkout journeys, and sophisticated multi-tenant configurations, ensuring flexibility and efficiency.
• • You will act as a technical steward, defining the "North Star" for our Scala-based distributed systems. This involves guiding the team towards global scale while ensuring the adoption of maintainable and robust patterns that support long-term growth and stability.
• • A significant focus will be on multi-tenant excellence. You will lead the evolution of our platform to prioritize "configuration over customization." This strategic shift aims to empower partners to launch world-class travel booking experiences with minimal to zero-touch engineering, significantly reducing integration time and effort.
• • Your influence will extend beyond your immediate team. You will be expected to raise the bar for the entire engineering organization by conducting deep-dive design reviews, mentoring senior engineers, and fostering a culture that values high ownership and asynchronous decision-making. This leadership will be crucial in driving technical excellence across Hopper.
• • Day-to-day, you will lead the design, build, and operation of API and full-stack solutions that serve as the definitive "source of truth" for Stays and Packages across all Hopper Technology Solutions (HTS) partners. This requires a deep understanding of distributed systems and API design.
• • You will proactively identify and address engineering improvements, tackling bottlenecks in the codebase or infrastructure that may hinder scalability. This involves a continuous effort to optimize performance and reliability.
• • Operating with extreme autonomy, you will work closely with fellow engineers, designers, and Product Managers to ensure high alignment on complex technical roadmaps. The emphasis on asynchronous communication and low-meeting culture means your ability to drive decisions through clear documentation and thoughtful proposals will be paramount.
• • Collaboration will be key, working cross-functionally with product teams, other Hopper engineering teams, and external partner teams. Ensuring foundational logic is robust, extensible, and meets the diverse needs of our partners is a critical objective.
• • You will champion asynchronous excellence, driving decision-making through high-quality documentation and effective asynchronous communication. Thriving in a low-meeting, high-alignment environment is essential for success in this role.
• • The ideal candidate possesses technical fearlessness, a natural drive to dive into complex, potentially unknown codebases to untangle logic and implement elegant abstractions while maintaining a focus on delivering results quickly.
• • Strong foundational product thinking is essential, anchoring your conception of quality in the customer experience while understanding that a great experience is built upon a stable, predictable, and performant commerce engine.
• • Mastery of distributed systems, particularly in Scala, is crucial. You should possess a deep understanding of the trade-offs between consistency, availability, and latency in a global environment, and be able to apply this knowledge to build robust systems.
• • A multi-tenant mindset is a must, prioritizing "configuration over customization" by building modular systems that can support a large number of partners with minimal manual intervention.
• • Finally, you should demonstrate pragmatic vision, effectively distinguishing between what requires immediate perfection and what can be iterated upon, balancing long-term system health with the imperative for speed and agility in a fast-paced startup environment.