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Chief Technology Officer

KAYAK

KAYAK

Software Engineering, IT
Boston, MA, USA
Posted on Jul 29, 2024

KAYAK, part of Booking Holdings (NASDAQ: BKNG), is the world’s leading travel search engine. With billions of queries across our platforms, we help people find their perfect flight, stay, rental car, cruise, or vacation package. We’re also transforming the in-travel experience with our app and new accommodation software. For more information, visit www.KAYAK.com.

As an employee of KAYAK, you will be part of a global network that includes OpenTable and KAYAK's portfolio of metasearch brands including Swoodoo, checkfelix, momondo, Cheapflights, Mundi and HotelsCombined. Many employees are dedicated to one brand, but we all have the benefit of using each others strengths and insights. Together, we're able to help people experience the world through dining and travel.

The Chief Technology Officer will work with KAYAK’s senior leadership to define and complete a technology roadmap that aligns with the overarching business strategy. Reporting to the CEO, this role is a unique opportunity for an experienced leader and expert technologist to evolve existing products and platforms into a market-leading position. They will deliver on and operate world-class applications that drive growth and innovation into the evolving landscape. The CTO will provide strong team leadership, technical knowledge, and be an important voice in creating and achieving strategic goals. They will work with Executive leadership to grow the company with an innovative, problem-solving attitude. This leader will be responsible for recruiting, hiring, growing, inspiring, and retaining world-class talent in the organization.

Responsibilities:

  • Collaborate closely with executive leadership, including the CEO, CCO, CMO
  • Manage and mentor 300+ engineers building user-facing products and internal platforms
  • Serve as master architect in setting the technical direction of the company, and guide teams in their technology decisions
  • Attract, develop, and retain world-class engineering talent
  • Foster a collaborative, inclusive, impact-oriented culture that motivates and inspires teams to do ambitious work
  • Drive product and technology innovation aimed at keeping the organization at the forefront of change
  • Build a scalable, secure, and highly performant technology stack using industry standard processes
  • Articulate and manage toward a modern platform vision
  • Translate the technical direction of the company into a prioritized roadmap
  • Establish and maintain a high engineering standard with a rigorous, yet agile development process
  • Discover and implement new approaches to technologies that yield competitive advantage
  • Provide leadership, motivation, and hands-on direction to management, design, and development teams in service to delivering outstanding technology experiences
  • Ensure alignment across technology, product, and business partners
  • Communicate and deliver to commitments and inspire accountability of teams by removing barriers to success

Ideal Experience & Skills:

The CTO will have demonstrated success in running a complex technology organization and delivering innovative solutions with proven business value. This person will demonstrate strong eye for business as well as a high degree of professionalism, integrity, and dedication. They will have excellent oral and written communication skills, strong interpersonal skills, and excellent management capabilities

  • Extensive experience leading large engineering teams and instilling a culture of creativity, accountability, and productivity
  • Demonstrated ability to deliver high-quality products, platforms, and services, at scale, and to measure and improve performance over time
  • Experience working across functions in a complex and dynamic consumer-focused business environment
  • Deep fluency with modern web, mobile, data, and infrastructure technologies, and how to deploy them at scale
  • Deep skill in all aspects of web and mobile technology
  • Excellent communication and interpersonal skills, with the ability to clearly explain technical choices and rationale to a varied audience of leaders across the company
  • Ability to conceptualize, prioritize, and manage multiple projects with ease
  • Experience building, empowering, motivating, and inspiring hard-working engineering teams
  • Ability to inspire and engage a diverse workforce to effectively meet current and future organizational needs
  • An inherent drive to build high-quality products and be proactive and relentless about pursuing them
  • Strong balance of strategic and tactical skills, with a high level of intellectual agility and capacity for original thought
  • Excellent collaboration, relationship management, and leadership skills.
  • Tenacious and resourceful problem-solving skills
  • Strong focus on execution. An executive with the appropriate level of drive to effectively manage multiple critical projects, ensuring that results and deadlines are achieved.
  • High degree of personal and professional integrity
  • Motivating leader who is passionate and can galvanize an organization

Benefits and Perks

  • 4 weeks paid vacation
  • Ability to work from almost anywhere
  • Day off on your birthday
  • Generous retirement plans
  • Great health, dental and vision insurance plans
  • Flexible Spending Accounts
  • Headspace Subscription
  • No Meeting Fridays
  • Drinks, coffee, snacks, games etc.
  • Weekly catered lunches
  • Flexible hours
  • Regular team events/excursions
  • Universal Paid Parental leave

Equity Eligible

There are a variety of factors that go into determining a salary range, including but not limited to external market benchmark data, geographic location, and years of experience sought/required. The range for the Boston-area based role is $275,000-$350,000.

In addition to a competitive base salary, roles are eligible for additional compensation and benefits including: annual cash bonus, equity grant; health benefits; flexible spending account; retirement benefits; life insurance; paid time off (including PTO, paid sick leave, medical leave, bereavement leave, floating holidays and paid holidays); and parental leave and benefits.

Diversity and Inclusion

We aspire to have a workplace that reflects all of the diverse communities we serve. We know that when we have diverse teams we produce more creative ideas, products, and better outcomes for our team members. OpenTable/KAYAK is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer and we welcome and encourage candidates from all backgrounds and experiences to apply for roles on our team. Whoever you are, just be you.

We will ensure that individuals with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodation to participate in the job application or interview process, to perform job responsibilities, and to receive other benefits and privileges of employment. Please contact us to request accommodation.