Software Engineer II

Job Description

A software developer owns the execution of technical elements in the Booking.com tech stack, products and processes. They are responsible for the implementation of technical solutions based on business requirements, they can estimate the effort and impact of the items they work on, and show a high quality of craft in what they deliver. A developer understands the quality of test automation is as important as the production code and spends time refactoring both to ensure ease of change enabling a sustainable pace of development.

Developers are expected to work together with colleagues in other job roles to design, prioritize and implement technical tasks. Because the required technical skills and commercial knowledge can vary from one business unit to another, a developer can focus on multiple types of work from product features to infrastructure automation, frameworks, tooling or services.

Responsibilities

1. Building software applications

   • Is responsible to build software applications by using relevant development languages and applying knowledge of systems, services, and tools appropriate for the business area.
   • Is responsible to write readable and reusable code by applying standard patterns and using standard libraries.
   • Is responsible to refactor and simplify code by introducing design patterns when necessary.
   • Is responsible to ensure the quality of the application by following standard testing techniques and methods that adhere to the test strategy.
   • Is responsible to maintain data security, integrity, and quality by effectively following company standards and best practices.

2. End to End System Ownership

   • Has sufficient knowledge to own a service end to end by actively monitoring application health and performance, setting and monitoring relevant metrics, and act accordingly when violated.
   • Has sufficient knowledge to reduce business continuity risks and bus factor by applying state-of-the-art practices and tools, and writing the appropriate documentation such as runbooks and OpDocs.
   • Has sufficient knowledge to reduce risk and obtain customer feedback by using continuous delivery and experimentation frameworks.
   • Is responsible to address and resolve live production issues by mitigating the customer impact within SLA.
   • Is responsible to improve the overall reliability of systems by producing long-term solutions through root cause analysis.
   • Is responsible to keep track of incidents by contributing to postmortem processes and logging live issues.

3. Architectural Guidance

   • Has basic knowledge to advise product teams towards a technical solution that meets the functional, nonfunctional & architectural requirements by challenging the rationale for an application design and providing context in the wider architectural landscape.
   • Has basic knowledge to set a clear direction for a technical capability by evaluating and aligning the target architecture improvements, reframing architectural designs and decisions for varied stakeholders.

4. Software Systems Design

   • Has sufficient knowledge to evaluate possible architecture solutions by taking into account cost, business requirements, technology requirements, and emerging technologies.
   • Has sufficient knowledge to describe the implications of changing an existing system or adding a new system to a specific area, by having a broad, high-level understanding of the infrastructure and architecture of our systems.
   • Has sufficient knowledge to help grow the business and/or accelerate software development by applying engineering techniques (e.g. prototyping, spiking, and vendor evaluation) and standards.

5. Critical Thinking

   • Is responsible to systematically identify patterns and underlying issues in complex situations, and to find solutions by applying logical and analytical thinking.
   • Is responsible to constructively evaluate and develop ideas, plans, and solutions by reviewing them, objectively taking into account external knowledge, initiating 'SMART' improvements, and articulating their rationale.

6. Continuous Quality and Process Improvement

   • Has sufficient knowledge to identify opportunities for process, system, and structural improvements (i.e., performance gains) by examining and evaluating current process flows, methods, and standards.
   • Has sufficient knowledge to design and implement relevant improvements by defining adapted/new process flows, standards, and practices that enable business performance.

7. Effective Communication

   • Is responsible to deliver clear, well-structured, and meaningful information to a target audience by using suitable communication mediums and language tailored to the audience.
   • Is responsible to achieve mutually agreeable solutions by staying adaptable, communicating ideas in clear coherent language, and practicing active listening.
   • Is responsible to ask relevant (follow-up) questions to properly engage with the speaker and really understand what they are saying, by applying listening and reflection techniques.