Senior Technical Program manager (For independent contractors)

Data & Machine Learning Department

About Us:

At Booking.com, data drives our decisions. Technology is at our core. And innovation is everywhere. But our company is more than datasets, lines of code or A/B tests. We’re the thrill of the first night in a new place. The excitement of the next morning. The friends you encounter. The journeys you take. The sights you see. And the memories you make. Through our products, partners and people, we make it easier for everyone to experience the world.

Role Description:

We are looking for a Senior Technical Program Manager (TPM) to join the Data & Machine Learning team. Senior TPMs must have demonstrated experience leading large cross-organizational software development projects. They must be able to thrive and succeed in an entrepreneurial environment, and not be hindered by ambiguity or competing priorities. This means not only being able to develop and drive high-level strategic initiatives, but also roll up your sleeves, dig in and help drive change. Senior TPMs, anticipate bottlenecks, provide escalation management, anticipate and make tradeoffs, and balance customer and business needs versus technical constraints. An ability to take large, complex projects and break them down into manageable pieces, develop functional specifications, then deliver them in a successful and timely manner is expected. They should be entrepreneurial, innovative individuals who thrive on solving tough problems.

You will be working on the next generation of Booking Data Exchange (BDX) capabilities to help reduce the time to insights for our booking.com user base. Specifically you will manage the Airflow migration, Tableau migration and SOxification of BDX.

Key Job Responsibilities and Duties:

• Be the driving force that collaborates with business and technical teams across Booking to make sure your teams deliver world class solutions that are highly scalable, secure, and flexible - all the while maintaining a strong customer focus.

  
  

• Interact with project sponsors, project stakeholders and multiple business and technical teams to define and deliver complex features

  
  

• Anticipate bottlenecks, provide escalation management, anticipate and make tradeoffs, and balance the business needs versus technical constraints

  
  

• Plan and manage multiple parallel projects

  
  

• The ability to slice through ambiguity and drive clarity where confusion exists; leveraging technical expertise with strong business acumen

  
  

• Maximize resources for the greater good of the organization, identify inefficient processes or waste and redirect resources as necessary

  
  

• Identify, assess, track and mitigate issues and risks at multiple levels

  
  

• Create, maintain and disseminate project information to stakeholders

  
  

• Communicate project issues and status in a concise, accurate, and professional manner

  
  

• Insatiable curiosity and ability to understand architectural and technical aspects of projects

  
  

• Apply best practices to the software development lifecycle (SDLC) for projects based on experiences with a number of agile and blended approaches, as well effectively coordinating the implementations across teams using very different approaches

  
  

• Build and maintain integrated project schedules that account for internal/external dependencies, differing SDLC approaches, numerous constraints and adequately factors in some contingency for some unplanned delays while still being aggressive.

Requirements of special knowledge/skills:

• Computer Science / Engineering Bachelor’s degree or related technical field

  
  

• Previous experience delivering technical programs is required.

  
  

• Understanding of technology (do not need to be a developer or programmer in previous experience, but must be comfortable with and able to communicate about tech specific topics)

  
  

• Strong analytical and quantitative skills;

  
  

• Data driven and results-oriented

  
  

• A proven track record of leading a visionary strategy to deliver global, company-wide platform services at enterprise large scales

• Advanced Knowledge (5 - 8 years)

  
  

• Relevant work experience, including technical program management experience