Staff Engineer (Travel)

Join KAYAK for Business (K4B), a corporate travel platform used by large enterprises to manage travel at scale. As a Staff Engineer with travel domain experience, you will shape how our platform connects to the world's travel providers. You will work closely with a collaborative, cross-location engineering team and have a real influence over the architecture and direction of the platform. Your responsibilities will include designing and owning significant parts of the K4B booking and integration architecture, taking end-to-end ownership of integrations, incorporating AI tooling and modern engineering approaches, collaborating with product and operations teams, mentoring and supporting engineers, and participating in architecture design reviews.

• Design, evolve, and own significant parts of the K4B booking and integration architecture, including direct provider connections and GDS-based integrations.
• Take end-to-end ownership of integrations — from technical design through production — and ensure they are well-understood, well-maintained, and clearly documented.
• Collaborate with product, operations, and partner teams to clarify requirements, resolve ambiguity, and drive technical decisions forward.
• Familiarity with travel industry concepts such as booking flows, ticketing, or fare structures (e.g., PNR, unused tickets, ancillaries)
• +7 years of backend engineering, with a track record of designing and delivering complex, distributed systems
• The ability to navigate ambiguity, ask the right questions, and bring clarity to complex technical problems
• Comfort working with a high degree of autonomy and ownership over your work
• Experience with Global Distribution System platforms (e.g., Amadeus, Sabre, Travelport) or direct airline/hotel integrations (NDC, AFOP)
• Experience building and maintaining integrations with external APIs or third-party systems
• Experience working across teams and communicating technical decisions clearly to both technical and non-technical colleagues
• Experience with fraud and payment systems in a booking or e-commerce context
• Background in SOAP-based web services or legacy system modernization