Engineering Team Lead

ABOUT US 🚀

Hostelworld Group, the global hostel-focussed online booking platform, inspires adventurous minds to meet the world and come back with life-changing stories to tell. Our customers are not your average tourists, they crave cultural connection and unique experiences that we make possible by providing an unbeatable selection of hostels in unmissable locations – all in the palm of their hand.

It is the social nature and community feel of hostels and their environment, that enable travellers to embrace journeys of discovery, adventure and meaning. We have more than 13 million reviews across 17,800 hostels in more than 179 countries, making the brand the leading online hub for social travel. The website operates in 19 different languages and our mobile app in 13 languages.

Founded in 1999 and headquartered in Dublin, Hostelworld has a growing, high-calibre team of 230 people within Technology, Product, Global Markets, HR, Finance & Legal and Marketing Teams across our Dublin, London, Porto, Shanghai and Sydney offices. Hostelworld is listed on the London Stock Exchange and Dublin Euronext. You can read more about our story here.

LOCATION🌍

This role is based in Portugal. We have an office hub in Porto available for those who prefer a hybrid model where you can spend time with colleagues in-person. You will need to be able to commute to our office hub as required from time to time.

WHO YOU'LL WORK WITH 👨🏽‍🤝‍👨🏼

You will lead an established team of 3 Developers and a QA Engineer. Your team, working alongside our team of Principal Engineers (PEs), Site Reliability Engineers (SREs) and Database Admins (DBAs), will deliver a redesign of the Hostelworld API Platforms Search APIs. Your team will consist of a mix between existing Hostelworld developers and newly hired contractors and will work with to deliver the new suite of APIs using Node.js, MongoDB and Apigee Gateway all deployed on GCP Cloud. The design relies heavily on Microservice Architectural design patterns and in particular Event Streaming. You will be expected to act as a Technical and Agile Leader, to grow people, collaborate with others, identify and amplify value.

WHAT YOU'LL DO 👩‍💻

The role requires both killer tech and people management skills. You’ll be responsible for:

• Evolving our Technical Direction/Architecture/Best Practices by working with our Architects and our Architectural Community of Practice (CoP).
• Communicating the Technical Direction/Architecture/Best Practices established by the CoP to your team ensuring they are understood and.
• Developing the teams Scrum processes with an emphasis on creating a self-organising team that focuses on delivering value into Production constantly.
• Mentor team members. Ensure they receive frequent performance feedback and are continuously learning.
• Work your Team, Business and Technical stakeholders to plan/scope features via quarterly planning sessions.
• Understand which projects are on track and which are blocked and escalate as required.
• Ensure that applications developed by your team are consistently monitored for Latency, Errors, and cost.
• Own Latency, Velocity, Reliability and Cost KPIs for services owned by your team
• Create and support a rewarding working environment that aligns with the company culture.

WHAT WE’RE LOOKING FOR 👀

Experience & Qualifications:

• Minimum 5 years professional development experience in Node.js using typescript.
• Strong understanding of Design Patterns (particularly within the Microservice Architecture)
• Strong experience developing and maintaining Cloud Native applications (we use GCP)
• Strong experience with NoSQL DBs (we use Firestore and Mongo)
• Strong CI/CD experience
• Experience working with remote teams.
• Preferred experience with an API Gateway (we use Apigee).
• Previous experience with MariaDB and PHP would be ‘nice to have’.

Knowledge & Skills:

• Excellent communication skills (proficient in both spoken and written English)
• Excellent analytical / problem- solving ability.
• Ability to understand software development in terms of business value.
• Ability to prioritise and meet deadlines.
• A self-starter who is solutions-focused
• A passionate learner

WHAT WE OFFER 💯

• Competitive salary & benefits 
• Enhanced annual leave plus 3 Wellbeing Days per year 
• Paid family leave (maternity, paternity, surrogacy & adoption) 
• Agile working (plus a Working from Abroad Policy!) 
• Support for your ongoing growth & development 
• Inclusive people policies (sickness, menopause, compassionate and fertility leave) 
• A chance to give back to your local community with 5 paid volunteering days

OUR BEHAVIOURS 🏆

• Grow others - We fundamentally believe that investing in growing others benefits everyone, whether it's helping them develop hard or soft skills. We want learning and growing to be part of our DNA to help makes us a better team, together.
• Master it - We are obsessed with our area of expertise and enjoy developing our skills. We rarely take things at face value; we investigate, interrogate, and always look for ‘the why,’ and wherever possible, we use data to find the best solution.
• Collaborate - We are in it together, for the tough stuff and the celebrations too. To achieve the best results, we need expertise from all areas of the organisation, and we wholeheartedly welcome diverse thinking.
• Adapt - We work fluidly, adapting to new information and the evolving environment while staying committed to our goals. Innovation and experimentation fuel our projects and we’re never afraid to pivot.
• Deliver - Our focus is always on the end result; we value outcomes over activity. We collaborate to deliver work at speed without dropping any of our other behaviours.

We’re committed to building a diverse and inclusive team that reflects the communities we serve. We know that different perspectives make us stronger, and we value the unique experiences each person brings. The criteria listed above are a guide—if you don’t meet every point but believe you can contribute meaningfully to this role, we encourage you to apply. We welcome applicants from all backgrounds, including individuals with disabilities, and are proud to be an equal opportunity employer.