Senior Engineering Manager (For independent contractors)

The role of Senior Engineering Manager will be accountable for the Engineering Managers (direct reports) and teams in their scope. They will be required to direct all aspects of the engineering function within the direct reporting line, provide technical guidance and input and ensure sound engineering procedures are in place and consistent with the rest of Booking.com. Ensure that products and processes are introduced, designed, and re-designed in order to meet the organization's objectives whilst making effective and efficient use of the facilities available. Therefore all engineering activities are in accordance with organizational standards, direction, goals and ambition. Alongside the Engineering Directors, this role will also be responsible for ensuring that the team performs to budget, that talent is identified and developed, any skills gaps are identified and key resources (including headcount) is identified and planned for in good time to ensure the success of the organisation's objectives.

Key Areas of Responsibility

Managing People

• Is responsible to inspire, grow and develop individuals by helping the creation of their personal development plan, leveraging available learning resources and offering stretch opportunities and guide more junior members of the team in this topic.

• Is responsible to manage underperformance by setting and reviewing performance objectives and KPIs, providing timely feedback and collaborating with HR counterparts and guide more junior members of the team in this topic.

Managing Teams

• Is responsible to get things done in the right way by taking ownership, being proactive and collaborating with business counterparts, peers, other craft managers and stakeholders and guide more junior members of the team in this topic.

• Is responsible to ensure delivery by tracking team health metrics and KPIs, monitoring roadmap progress, identifying blockers and resolving or escalating them and guide more junior members of the team in this topic.

• Is responsible to manage the team’s stakeholders by reporting progress and blockers in a clear and timely manner and guide more junior members of the team in this topic.

• Is responsible to plan and manage headcount by actively participating and involving own team in recruitment efforts and planning processes and guide more junior members of the team in this topic.

Coaching/Mentoring

• Is responsible to coach, guide and improve the overall performance of stakeholders and colleagues at all levels, when appropriate, by sharing experience, knowledge and approaches to work and guide more junior members of the team in this topic.

End to End System Ownership

• Is responsible to own a service end to end by actively monitoring application health and performance, setting and monitoring relevant metrics and act accordingly when violated and guide more junior members of the team in this topic.

• Is responsible 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 and guide more junior members of the team in this topic.

• Is responsible to reduce risk and obtain customer feedback by using continuous delivery and experimentation frameworks and guide more junior members of the team in this topic.

• Is responsible to independently manage an application or service by working through deployment and operations in production and guide more junior members of the team in this topic.

Technical Incident Management

• Is responsible to address and resolve live production issues by mitigating the customer impact within SLA and guide more junior members of the team in this topic.

• Is responsible to improve the overall reliability of systems by producing long term solutions through root cause analysis and guide more junior members of the team in this topic.

• Is responsible to keep track of incidents by contributing to postmortem processes and logging live issues and guide more junior members of the team in this topic.

Building software applications

• Has sufficient knowledge to build software applications by using relevant development languages and applying knowledge of systems, services and tools appropriate for the business area

• Has sufficient knowledge to write readable and reusable code by applying standard patterns and using standard libraries

• Has sufficient knowledge to refactor and simplify code by introducing design patterns when necessary

• Has sufficient knowledge to ensure the quality of the application by following standard testing techniques and methods that adhere to the test strategy

• Has sufficient knowledge to maintain data security, integrity and quality by effectively following company standards and best practices

• Is accountable and works on the operational rollout to maintain data security, integrity and quality by effectively following company standards and best practices, guiding more junior members of the team in this topic and supporting the changes in data culture and management

Architectural Guidance

• Is responsible 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 and guide more junior members of the team in this topic.

• Is responsible to set a clear direction for a technical capability by evaluating and aligning the target architecture improvements, reframing architectural designs and decisions for varied stakeholder and guide more junior members of the team in this topic.

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.

Continuous Quality and Process Improvement

• Is responsible to identify opportunities for process, system and structural improvements (i.e performance gains) by examining and evaluating current process flows, methods and standards and guide more junior members of the team in this topic.

• Is responsible to design and implement relevant improvements by defining adapted/new process flows, standards, and practices that enable business performance and guide more junior members of the team in this topic.

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 and guide more junior members of the team in this topic.

• Is responsible to achieve mutually agreeable solutions by staying adaptable, communicating ideas in clear coherent language and practising active listening and guide more junior members of the team in this topic.

• 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 and guide more junior members of the team in this topic.

Additional Requirements

• This role may require to be on an on-call rotation

• Master degree