As a Senior Director Software Development, you are responsible for leading the Marketing technology strategy and execution areas focused on Performance, Partnerships, Growth, Brand and Social Media Marketing, a department of self steering teams who develop products and constantly innovate to delight our customers.

As Booking.com envisions a future in which it will serve customers a one-stop solution for all travel-related needs, we are working towards offering a fully ‘Connected Trip’, in which every aspect of the travel experience can be planned and booked through us.

As our business is constantly growing, we are looking for a senior leader to join our team, impact our users every day and take our product and technology to the next level.

People & Function Leadership

• Lead, inspire and motivate your Engineering function through leading by example and setting expectations around what success looks like, giving ownership and providing clarity when necessary
• Line manage Directors and Senior Managers as well as top technical talent, such as Principals
• Communicate strategy in a compelling manner to multiple teams and relevant stakeholders
• Foster inclusion by holding self and others accountable
• Drive people centric initiatives that enable workforce diversity
• Organisational design, strategy and budget to ensure we are set up to deliver on our strategic agenda
• Partner in and outside of our Business unit to lead and shape the people agenda across Booking.com
• Create a learning environment by coaching, two-way feedback, helping people extract and share personal learnings, and support teams to constantly adapt
• Foster a positive engineering culture who innovate, work as a team and celebrate success
• Build a world class team through nurturing, attracting, and retaining tech talent from around the world
• Empower your teams to do their best work at Booking.com
• Be curious, learn, iterate and shape our culture

Technology, Craft & Delivery Leadership

• Create long-term plans that align with the overall focus of the business
• Lead, influence and own delivery within your function including department goals
• Partner with other functions and business units to deliver on our strategic agenda
• Maintain focus on the end goal, minimise risk and remove roadblocks for our strategic agenda
• Ensure clear and effective communication at all levels: proactively keep all stakeholders informed of what’s happening, upcoming changes, projects, issues and risks
• Develop mastery in engineering craftsmanship across Booking.com including shaping ways of working
• Own Technology-wide topics and help lead and grow the department
• Embed Agile ways of working and values within the organisation
• Identify problems and significantly improve, change or adapt existing methods and techniques drawing from personal experiences and feedback
• Drive a DevOps culture

Technology, Architecture & Product Strategy

• Shape, define and build new products, processes and operational plans in alignment with the commercial and financial needs of the business
• Lead, take ownership and shape the technology strategic objectives and roadmaps
• Be a strategic thought partner and influence senior stakeholders across Marketing and the broader business to set and align the strategic direction of your function
• Make decisions in complex and ambiguous situations, and guide others in their decision making by recognizing and challenging assumptions, introducing relevant data and multiple perspectives
• Ensure that the Booking architecture principles and engineering practices are adhered to, and that there is direction and alignment for each product
• Anticipate the need for changes based on context, and set renewed courses of action to engage teams and achieve goals, while aspiring to make the impact clear and understandable
• Drive innovation in your function
• Be responsible for the architecture across your function

Ideal Experience & Skills:

• Substantial years of Tech Leadership experience
• Experience with large scale platforms and high traffic (100,000+ visitors per day), preferably E-commerce sites or marketplace companies
• Demonstrable experience of building, shaping and leading a cross functional Engineering function or business unit at scale (150/200+ people)
• Must understand technology and have a consistent track record of designing and building high quality web and mobile applications especially high volume consumer facing applications
• Demonstrable experience of working in Agile environments and more importantly an Agile culture and ethos
• Demonstrable experience of setting, leading and influencing both the Engineering and Business strategy to the medium and long-term
• Experience with leading and coaching teams of senior tech leaders including building and growing teams
• Independent, pragmatic and proactive work attitude
• Well versed in Engineering Craftsmanship
• Cloud based technologies
• Building a DevOps culture
• Be humble and human
• Excellent communication skills
• Strong commercial savvy

Other Personal Characteristics

• Character traits: open mind, learning attitude, clear behavior, positive, overachiever, strong communicator, proactive and collaborative.
• Strategic problem solver yet focused on execution; able to roll up sleeves to get things done.
• Able to function in a fast-moving entrepreneurial environment.
• Data driven, experimental, ready to learn and open to change.
• Keep the customer at the centre of everything you do.
• Good cultural and organizational sensitivity.
• Committed to build