Software Engineer II (For Independent Contractors)

Details

The role owns the execution of technical elements across Booking.com's technology stack, products, and processes. Responsibilities include implementing technical solutions based on business requirements, estimating effort and impact, delivering high-quality software, and maintaining both production code and test automation to support sustainable development. The role may involve product features, infrastructure automation, frameworks, tooling, or services, depending on the business unit.

Responsibilities

Building Software Applications

• Build software applications using relevant development languages, systems, services, and tools.
• Write readable and reusable code using standard patterns and libraries.
• Refactor and simplify code by introducing design patterns where necessary.
• Ensure application quality through standard testing techniques and methods aligned with the test strategy.
• Maintain data security, integrity, and quality by following company standards and best practices.

End-to-End System Ownership

• Own services end to end by monitoring application health and performance and acting on relevant metrics.
• Reduce business continuity risks and bus factor through appropriate practices, tools, documentation, runbooks, and OpDocs.
• Reduce risk and obtain customer feedback through continuous delivery and experimentation frameworks.
• Independently manage applications or services through deployment and production operations.

Technical Incident Management

• Address and resolve live production issues while mitigating customer impact within SLA.
• Improve system reliability through root cause analysis and long-term solutions.
• Contribute to postmortems and maintain records of live issues.

Architectural Guidance and Software Systems Design

• Advise product teams on technical solutions that meet functional, non-functional, and architectural requirements.
• Evaluate and align architectural improvements and decisions for varied stakeholders.
• Evaluate architecture options based on cost, business requirements, technology requirements, and emerging technologies.
• Describe the implications of changing or adding systems through a broad understanding of infrastructure and system architecture.
• Apply engineering techniques such as prototyping, spiking, and vendor evaluation.
• Design adaptable solutions that meet current and future business requirements.

Quality, Process Improvement, and Communication

• Identify and implement process, system, and structural improvements, including performance gains.
• Maintain data security, integrity, and quality while guiding more junior team members.
• Communicate clearly with peers, product owners, and team members using appropriate language and communication methods.
• Apply active listening, ask relevant follow-up questions, and work toward mutually agreeable solutions.
• Participate in an on-call rotation if required.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree.
• 3–5 years of relevant job knowledge.
• Proficiency in building software applications.
• Experience with end-to-end system ownership.
• Experience in software systems design.
• Familiarity with architectural guidance.
• Experience in technical incident management.
• Experience in technical leadership and effective communication.
• Experience in continuous quality improvement.
• Proficiency in critical thinking.