Staff Engineer - Platform Architecture

Location: London, Hybrid position, In office 2 days per week

With millions of diners, 60,000+ restaurant partners and 25+ years of experience, OpenTable, part of Booking Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ: BKNG), is an industry leader with a passion for helping restaurants thrive. Our world-class technology empowers restaurants to focus on what matters most – their team, their guests, and their bottom line – while enabling diners to discover and book the perfect restaurant for every occasion. 

Every employee at OpenTable has a tangible impact on what we do and how we do it. You’ll also be part of a global team and its portfolio of metasearch brands. Hospitality is all about taking care of others, and it defines our culture.

The Team and Mission

The Platform Architecture team designs, builds, and maintains a resilient and scalable internal platform.

Our mission is to provide engineers with a suite of tools, libraries, and capabilities that enable them to create and manage their applications with greater autonomy and speed. This encompasses:

• Establishing best practices for architecture across the organization.
• Providing engineering teams with the autonomy to provision infrastructure, set up CI/CD pipelines, and access necessary services on demand.
• Improving the developer experience by abstracting away the complexities of the underlying infrastructure, allowing developers to focus on writing code rather than navigating intricate infrastructure and operational tasks.
• Acting as an advocate for product teams in discussions with infra-engineering groups. We try to combine understanding of both sides.
• Adapting the platform to meet the evolving needs of engineering teams and the organization

The Role: 

As a Staff Engineer in Platform Architecture, you will be instrumental in the entire lifecycle of our Node.js platform components. This encompasses not only their initial design and construction but also their ongoing maintenance and continuous evolution. These components are vital, serving numerous engineering teams throughout the organization.

Your role will require close collaboration with both product and infrastructure engineering teams. This partnership is crucial for driving the platform's evolution, actively collecting feedback from stakeholders, and fostering a collaborative environment that ensures the platform meets the diverse needs of our internal users.

You are expected to leverage your extensive experience and creative problem-solving skills to facilitate the platform's continuous improvement. This includes identifying areas for optimization, implementing innovative solutions, and championing best practices to enhance the platform's reliability, scalability, and overall efficiency.

What We’re Looking For: 

• Strong engineering background with 5+ years of professional experience in JavaScript and TypeScript, and Node.js
• Proven track record of building developer-facing tools, creating intuitive and reusable designs, and writing maintainable and well-architected code.
• Strong communication, critical thinking, and analytical skills, enabling you to convey ideas clearly, represent technical trade-offs, and foster a collaborative working environment.
• Strong problem-solving skills and a passion for technology, coupled with an understanding of software development workflows, processes, and best practices.
• Positive, self-starting attitude, work flexibly and openly with others, form opinions and enjoy discussion, yet remain personable and approachable.
• Eagerness to constantly learn and grow in the role while adapting to new systems, and a desire to build and share your knowledge with others.

Please consider applying if this role sounds exciting, even if you don’t meet all the requirements.

Benefits and Perks 

• 5 weeks paid vacation + time off for your birthday (celebration day!)
• Pension plan contributions
• Private health & dental insurance
• Work from (almost) anywhere for up to 20 days per year
• Focus on mental health and well-being:
• Company-paid therapy sessions through SpringHealth
• Company-paid subscription to Headspace
• Annual company-wide week off a year - the whole team fully recharges (and returns without a pile-up of work!)
• Paid parental leave
• Paid volunteer time
• Focus on your career growth:
  • Development Dollars (books/conferences)
  • Leadership development
  • Access to thousands of on-demand e-learning courses
• Travel Discounts
• Employee Resource Groups
• Income protection and life assurance
• Employee Assistance Program - including 24/7 GP & free legal advice
• Discounted gym membership
• Bike2Work
• Season ticket loan
• Social events & Thursday happy hours
• Free lunch 2 days per week

Work Environment & Flexibility

At OpenTable, we pride ourselves on fostering a global and dynamic work environment. As a team member with us, you will benefit from a schedule tailored to accommodate a global workforce operating across multiple time zones. While the majority of your responsibilities may align with conventional business hours, there will be instances where you are expected to manage communications - via calls, Slack messages, or emails - outside of regular working hours to effectively collaborate with international colleagues, respond to restaurant partners, and/or address urgent matters. OpenTable will always abide by and consider local laws and regulations.

Inclusion

We’re committed to creating a workplace where everyone feels they belong and can thrive. We know the best ideas come when we bring different voices to the table, so we're building a team as dynamic as the diners and restaurants we serve—and fostering a culture where everyone feels welcome to be themselves.

If you need adjustments during the application or interview process, or on the job, we’re here to support you. Please reach out to your recruiter to request any adjustments.