Director of Architecture - Trips

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About Booking.com

Established in 1996 in Amsterdam, Booking.com has grown from a small Dutch start-up to one of the largest ecommerce companies in the world. Booking.com is the largest business within Booking Holdings (NASDAQ: BKNG) and accounts for the vast majority of Booking Holdings' total revenue. Booking Holdings is a leading Fortune 500 e-commerce conglomerate with a market cap of roughly $119,69 billion (2023). Booking.com currently employs approximately 13,000 employees in 140 offices in 70 countries worldwide.

With a mission to make it easier for everyone to experience the world, Booking.com invests in digital technology that helps take the friction out of travel. Booking.com connects travelers with the world's largest selection of incredible places to stay, including everything from apartments, vacation homes, and family-run B&Bs to 5-star luxury resorts and even tree houses. The Booking.com website and mobile apps are available in over 44 languages, offer more than 28M total reported listings, and cover over 174,000 destinations in 229 countries worldwide. Offering 30 different types of places to stay, including homes, apartments, B&Bs, hostels, farm stays, bungalows, even boats, igloos, and treehouses. So whether travelling for business or leisure, customers can instantly book their ideal accommodation quickly and easily, without booking fees and backed up by its promise to price match. Via the customer experience team, customers can reach Booking.com 24/7 for assistance and support in over 44 languages, any time of the day or night.

At Booking.com, we are all involved in making hundreds of decisions every day. The decisions we make are a reflection of our Values - they reflect what is important to us, both as individuals and as an organization.

When Values are made explicit, they provide clarity on what "good" looks like. And when they are shared, they build unity in a group. They build culture.

Think customer first. We obsess about adding value for our customers - guests, partners, colleagues - to make it easier for everyone to experience the world.
Own it. We deliver on our promises, make informed decisions and prioritize to get the important things done today.
Learn forever. We are resilient, take time to reflect, and seek to learn - from colleagues, from the outside world and from our failures.
Succeed together. We celebrate team success, through making connections, building trust and valuing the diverse perspectives of others.
Do the right thing. We get the right results the right way. For each other, our communities and the world around us.

Profile: Director of Architecture - Trips

The Director of Architecture is responsible for the architectural vision, strategy & technology roadmap across the Trips business unit and ensuring it is aligned with our Tech Guiding Principles and Central Technology architecture map and standards.

This role will lead a team of Solution Architects who are accountable for translating requirements and customer needs into an architectural solution. Solution Architects will partner with teams and leaderships across departments to ensure that the solution design is fit for purpose.

The team will be primarily focused within their BU however where required will partner with other BUs to ensure that our requirements of our Product and Business strategy are delivered upon. The group will ensure that the capability mapping and architectural artifacts within the BU are maintained and current. This role can be located either in Amsterdam or Manchester.

Responsibilities:

• Connecting the strategic business priorities of the BU to the enterprise architecture roadmap, own and communicate the narrative and maintain strategic alignment among senior stakeholders.
• Defining and leading architectural design and roadmap for complex, business-critical or cross-company projects and address/resolve inter-program and inter-initiative challenges
• Developing deep partnership with Senior Technology, Data and Product leadership mapping out our long term technology vision, strategy and roadmap to ensure capabilities within the BU are fit for the future and have a clear evolution path
• Acting as a thought partner with other BUs to define and develop the long term technical capabilities that underpin our vision of the Connected Trip
• Partnering with the central tech standards group and other departments/BUs to shape and define standards based on the local needs of their business unit
• Defining and develop the operating model for their team that is linked clearly to, and delivers against, the strategic objectives of their BU and Booking.com
• Developing a sustainable, high performance organization.
• Leading, inspiring and motivating a team of our most senior technical experts setting clear expectations around what success looks like, giving ownership and providing clarity when necessary
• Ensuring that future technology investments and capabilities are widely socialized, understood, prioritized and aligned so that they are built effectively into medium to long term planning horizons
• Creating and maintaining our (local) systems architecture designs and following the Tech Guiding Principles to have a clear path towards the North Star.
• Ensuring that architectural, TGP and Techradar standards are being adhered to.

Ideal Experience & Skills:

• Substantial knowledge and experience in Software and Solution architecture with a deep expertise for Architecture, while being able to perform at and engage with (Sr) Director/(S)VP level stakeholders
• Experience operating large, Internet scale applications and distributed systems spanning multiple languages, platforms, front and back end services, networks and public cloud platforms.
• Ability to communicate and sell the technology strategy and vision across the business
• Deep business acumen and technical expertise
• Strong stakeholder management skills and thought partnership across engineering and product
• Experience of building, leading and inspiring teams of senior technical experts setting clear expectations and giving ownership
• Highly proficiency in domain based technology strategies and in platform architecture patterns
• Strong understanding of digital technology space including mobile, web and distribution stacks
• Strong understanding of cloud technologies and emerging technologies including AI
• Strong understanding of NFRs and building resilience
• Ability to lead and coach others in modeling solution architectures

OTHER PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS

• Character traits: open mind, learning attitude, transparent behavior, positive, overachiever, strong communicator, proactive and collaborative.
• Strategic thinker 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 center of everything you do.
• Good cultural and organizational sensitivity.
• Committed to building a diverse, inclusive work environment.

Pre-Employment Screening:
If your application is successful, your personal data may be used for a pre-employment screening check by a third party as permitted by applicable law. Depending on the vacancy and applicable law, a pre-employment screening may include employment history, education and other information (such as media information) that may be necessary for determining your qualifications and suitability for the position.