Engineering Manager, Flights Meta

About the role

This role owns the technical leadership and delivery of the Flights Meta backend team inside the Meta Search business unit at KAYAK. The hire will lead and mentor a team of backend engineers, providing technical guidance, performance feedback, and career development support. They will own the team's technical roadmap and align priorities with Flights product goals, technical health, and the broader Meta Search strategy. This position requires driving backend architecture and engineering decisions across the flight search domain, including APIs, service architecture, quality, scalability, and maintainability. The manager will partner closely with the Flights Product Manager, Flights Meta frontend engineering leadership, QA, and Design to plan and deliver complex cross-functional work. They will ensure features are properly refined before sprint commitment, with clear Definition of Done, visible ownership, and strong coordination across backend and frontend work streams. The role supports reliable operation of the Flights business by helping the team respond effectively to incidents, use production tooling well, and communicate clearly during high-severity issues. The hire will foster a collaborative and inclusive team culture that encourages accountability, knowledge sharing, continuous improvement, and high engineering standards while recruiting, onboarding, and growing backend engineering talent to support the Flights Meta roadmap over time.

Key facts

What you'll do

• Lead and mentor a team of backend engineers, providing technical guidance, performance feedback, and career development support.
• Own the team's technical roadmap and align priorities with Flights product goals, technical health, and the broader Meta Search strategy.
• Drive backend architecture and engineering decisions across the flight search domain, including APIs, service architecture, quality, scalability, and maintainability.
• Partner closely with the Flights Product Manager, Flights Meta frontend engineering leadership, QA, and Design to plan and deliver complex cross-functional work.
• Ensure features are properly refined before sprint commitment, with clear Definition of Done, visible ownership, and strong coordination across backend and frontend work streams.
• Improve execution by reducing blockers, strengthening developer handoffs, and avoiding unnecessary waterfall patterns between backend and frontend delivery.
• Raise the bar on production readiness through strong practices in testing, code coverage, monitoring, logging, performance validation, and operational readiness.
• Support reliable operation of the Flights business by helping the team respond effectively to incidents, use production tooling well, and communicate clearly during high-severity issues.
• Foster a collaborative and inclusive team culture that encourages accountability, knowledge sharing, continuous improvement, and high engineering standards.
• Recruit, onboard, and grow backend engineering talent to support the Flights Meta roadmap over time.

Requirements

• 8+ years of backend or platform software development experience, with strong knowledge of distributed systems and service architecture.
• A degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related field - or equivalent practical experience.
• Experience leading or managing backend engineers, with a strong track record in coaching, performance management, and team development.
• Strong technical fundamentals in API design, backend frameworks, software architecture, and modern engineering best practices.
• Confidence with observability and monitoring tools, and a track record of improving reliability and operational excellence.
• Strong project leadership skills, including the ability to prioritize across roadmap work, technical debt, and cross-team dependencies.
• Excellent communication and collaboration skills, with the ability to work effectively across engineering, product, design, and business stakeholders.
• Professional proficiency in written and spoken English.
• Experience with Java and modern backend frameworks in production environments is strongly preferred.
• Experience leading teams in agile development environments, including sprint planning, refinement, and cross-functional delivery, is strongly preferred.
• Experience working on search, booking, or other high-throughput systems is a strong plus.

Practical notes

This role will be required to work from our Kaunas office at least 3 days per week.

Compensation

Base

pay: from 6000 EUR up to 7080 EUR gross monthly.

• Significant yearly bonuses, approx 15% percent of annual salary.
• Booking Holdings RSU (Restricted Stock Units) package, worth 50,000 USD gross, with possibility to receive yearly refreshes.

Salary range provided is not final and will be discussed during the process based on your skills and experience.

• Work from (almost) anywhere for up to 20 days per year
• Funds for your career growth
• Access to tools, events, and certifications to support your learning
• Medical and life insurance
• Paid time off and public holidays
• Pension contributions
• Employee discounts
• Referral bonuses
• Onsite amenities including snacks, coffee, and ergonomic furniture

Deadline

Please apply as soon as possible to ensure full consideration of your application.

Equal opportunity statement

We are committed to diversity and are proud to be an equal opportunity employer.