Staff Software Engineer, Meta AI

The role

You will design, implement, and maintain production software for travel-search and trip-planning experiences. You will build APIs and services supporting AI-assisted search and conversational travel planning.

What you will do

• Design, implement and maintain reliable production software for KAYAK’s travel-search and trip-planning experiences.
• Build and evolve APIs and services supporting AI-assisted search, conversational travel planning, itineraries and related user experiences.
• Investigate technical problems, assess trade-offs and choose practical solutions.
• Write automated tests and contribute to quality across unit, integration and end-to-end testing.
• Participate in code reviews and technical discussions.
• Work with engineers, product managers and designers to clarify requirements.
• Contribute to features such as ASK AI, smart filters, AI-generated hotel review summaries, Explore and related search experiences.
• Help make AI-assisted features dependable, transparent and useful to travelers.
• Learn unfamiliar systems and share knowledge with teammates.
• Monitor and improve production behavior through effective debugging, observability and root-cause analysis.

Required qualifications

• Experience building and maintaining production software.
• Proficiency in Java or another relevant programming language.
• Familiarity with APIs, data structures and software-design principles.
• Experience testing software and investigating defects or production issues.
• The ability to explain technical decisions clearly in writing and conversation.
• The ability to take ownership of assigned work while asking for input or support when needed.
• Experience contributing to projects from design through implementation, release and maintenance.

Nice to have

• Experience with distributed systems, search, personalization or other high-volume consumer products.
• Experience with AI, machine learning or large language model applications.
• Experience with relational databases or other structured data stores.
• Experience working on web products, mobile products or travel-related products.
• Experience improving accessibility, reliability or usability.
• Experience working with Java and Spring.
• Experience with cloud services, CI/CD pipelines and automated testing frameworks.

Benefits

• Work from (almost) anywhere for up to 20 days per year
• Company-paid therapy sessions through SpringHealth
• Company-paid subscription to HeadSpace
• Company-wide week off a year
• No meeting Fridays
• Paid parental leave
• Generous paid vacation + time off for your birthday
• Paid volunteer time
• Development Dollars
• Leadership development
• Access to thousands of on-demand e-learnings
• Travel Discounts

About the company

KAYAK is a leading travel search engine and part of Booking Holdings. It operates a portfolio of global metasearch brands including momondo, Cheapflights and HotelsCombined.