Backend Software Engineer (Java / Scala / Kotlin)

At Agoda, our Backend Engineering team builds high-scale, fault-tolerant distributed systems that power a global travel platform serving millions of users daily. We own mission-critical domains across inventory, pricing, booking, payments, and customer/partner platforms.
As a Staff Backend Engineer, you will drive the design and development of scalable distributed systems, working on high-impact backend services. You'll combine hands-on coding, system design, and technical leadership, contributing to complex systems and influencing engineering practices.
Responsibilities:
Design and build scalable distributed systems and microservices.
Lead development of complex features and technical initiatives end-to-end.
Drive system design, API design, and engineering best practices.
Own scalability, performance, reliability, and fault tolerance of services.
Optimise high-throughput, low-latency systems.
Contribute to cross-team collaboration and system alignment.
Stay hands-on with coding and system design (50-60%).
Mentor engineers and support overall team capability growth.
Participate in technical decision-making and architectural improvements.
Handle production issues, RCA, and continuous improvements.
Requirements:
8-12 years of backend engineering experience.
Strong experience building distributed systems at scale.
Expertise in: Java, Kotlin, or Scala.
Strong understanding of: Microservices architecture, REST APIs and system design, SQL/NoSQL databases, Performance, scalability, and concurrency.
Strong coding + problem-solving ability.
Ability to contribute to technical decisions and mentor engineers.
Nice to Have:
Experience building large-scale consumer or marketplace platforms.
Exposure to event-driven systems (Kafka, RabbitMQ).
Experience with NoSQL databases (Cassandra, MongoDB, Aerospike).
Familiarity with cloud (AWS/GCP) and CI/CD pipelines.
Experience working in Agile/Scrum environments.

Experience
8-12 yrs