Software Development Engineer II

📍 Location

Rome

💰 Compensation

• Base Salary: €46.000 – €64.500
• Potential earnings up to €73.500 based on sustained performance

🏢 About Expedia Group

Expedia Group brands power global travel for everyone, everywhere. We design cutting-edge technology to make travel smoother and more memorable while creating innovative solutions for our partners.

Our diverse, vibrant, and inclusive community is essential to our success.

🌍 Why Join Us

We believe that shaping the future of travel starts with people.

We offer:

• Travel perks and discounts
• Generous paid time off
• Parental leave
• Flexible work model
• Career development resources
• Wellness & travel reimbursement
• IATAN membership
• Comprehensive employee benefits package

🖥️ The Team

The Landing Platform team is responsible for building and maintaining the backbone of Expedia Group’s landing page architecture.

The platform powers customer entry experiences across:

• Google Search
• Metasearch engines
• SEO channels
• Paid advertising

The team operates at global scale across Expedia Group brands including:

• Expedia
• Hotels.com
• Vrbo
• Additional portfolio brands

The team focuses on performance, scalability, SEO optimization, and the emerging field of Agentic Engine Optimization (AEO), ensuring landing experiences integrate effectively with AI-powered search experiences.

🚀 The Role

As a Software Development Engineer II, you will build backend services and platform capabilities that power Expedia Group's landing experiences at extraordinary scale.

You will contribute to the technical foundation driving:

• SEO visibility
• Traffic acquisition
• Landing page performance
• AI-powered search experiences

You will work closely with frontend engineers, product teams, and global stakeholders.

🔧 In This Role, You Will

• Design, develop, and maintain services and APIs powering the Landing Platform
• Build reliable and performant landing page infrastructure across multiple brands
• Design API contracts and data models aligned with platform architecture
• Collaborate with engineers, product managers, and designers to translate business requirements into scalable technical solutions
• Own service quality and operational health
• Implement:
  • Automated testing
  • Monitoring
  • Observability
  • Reliability improvements
• Participate in code reviews and technical discussions
• Contribute to engineering standards and documentation
• Safely integrate AI/ML-enabled capabilities into landing experiences

👤 Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related technical field (or equivalent practical experience)
• 2+ years of experience as a Software Development Engineer
• Experience building and operating backend services or APIs in production
• Experience with:
  • API design
  • Data modelling
  • Low-level system design
• Proficiency in:
  • Java or Kotlin
  • Modern service development frameworks
• Experience with:
  • Unit testing
  • Integration testing
  • CI/CD tooling
• Experience owning services throughout their lifecycle:
  • Deployment
  • Monitoring
  • Troubleshooting
  • Continuous improvement
• Familiarity with AI-powered development tools
• Commitment to responsible AI usage, privacy, security, validation, and testing

⭐ Preferred Qualifications

• Experience building shared platforms supporting multiple teams or brands
• Experience designing distributed services at scale
• Strong knowledge of:
  • API design
  • Data contracts
  • Storage models
• Experience with:
  • Observability
  • Performance optimization
  • Incident response
  • Production reliability
• Experience collaborating in cross-functional environments
• Data-driven decision making and experimentation mindset
• Familiarity with cloud platforms such as AWS

🎁 Benefits

• Medical, dental, and vision coverage
• Paid time off
• Employee Assistance Program
• Wellness reimbursement
• Travel reimbursement
• Expedia travel discounts
• IATAN membership
• Flexible work environment
• Career development opportunities

🏆 Why This Opportunity

• Work on systems operating at massive global scale
• Build platforms powering Expedia, Hotels.com, Vrbo, and other global brands
• Exposure to AI-powered search and Agentic Engine Optimization (AEO)
• Backend engineering role with strong platform ownership
• Opportunity to influence experiences used by millions of travelers worldwide
• International engineering environment
• Competitive compensation and benefits package