---
title: 'Engineering Manager, Flights Meta at KAYAK'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/engineering-manager-flights-meta-kayak-kaunas-cf8hem89qnhc'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-12'
---

# Engineering Manager, Flights Meta at KAYAK

- **Company:** KAYAK
- **Location:** Kaunas, Lithuania
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Work type:** hybrid
- **Posted:** 2026-07-07
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-12
- **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/kayak/a319d9ae-12a1-4c86-a669-fb6244ab65b0

## Job description

KAYAK, part of Booking Holdings (NASDAQ: BKNG), is a leading travel search engine. With billions of queries across our platforms, we help people find their perfect flight, stay, rental car and vacation package. We’re also transforming business travel with a new corporate travel solution, KAYAK for Business. As an employee of KAYAK, you will be part of a travel company that operates a portfolio of global metasearch brands including momondo, Cheapflights and HotelsCombined, among others. From start-up to industry leader, innovation is in our DNA and every employee has an opportunity to make their mark. Our focus is on building the best travel search engine to make it easier for everyone to experience the world. KAYAK is seeking an Engineering Manager to lead the Flights Meta Backend team within our Meta Search business unit.. This team owns backend leadership for flight-vertical decisions and issues, and works across flight search systems, endpoints, experiments, observability, and production operations in close partnership with Product, frontend engineering, QA, and Design. This is a role for a balanced people manager with strong backend technical depth—someone who enjoys coaching engineers, strengthening delivery and operational quality, and partnering cross-functionally to ship reliable, high-impact features for the Flights business. This role will be required to work from our Kaunas office at least 3 days per week.

In this role you will:

- Lead and mentor a team of backend engineers, providing technical guidance, performance feedback, and career development support.
- Own the team’s technical roadmap and align priorities with Flights product goals, technical health, and the broader Meta Search strategy.
- Drive backend architecture and engineering decisions across the flight search domain, including APIs, service architecture, quality, scalability, and maintainability.
- Partner closely with the Flights Product Manager, Flights Meta frontend engineering leadership, QA, and Design to plan and deliver complex cross-functional work.
- Ensure features are properly refined before sprint commitment, with clear Definition of Done, visible ownership, and strong coordination across backend and frontend work streams.
- Improve execution by reducing blockers, strengthening developer handoffs, and avoiding unnecessary waterfall patterns between backend and frontend delivery.
- Raise the bar on production readiness through strong practices in testing, code coverage, monitoring, logging, performance validation, and operational readiness.
- Support reliable operation of the Flights business by helping the team respond effectively to incidents, use production tooling well, and communicate clearly during high-severity issues.
- Foster a collaborative and inclusive team culture that encourages accountability, knowledge sharing, continuous improvement, and high engineering standards.
- Recruit, onboard, and grow backend engineering talent to support the Flights Meta roadmap over time.

Please apply if you have:

- 8+ years of backend or platform software development experience, with strong knowledge of distributed systems and service architecture.
- A degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related field — or equivalent practical experience.
- Experience leading or managing backend engineers, with a strong track record in coaching, performance management, and team development.
- Strong technical fundamentals in API design, backend frameworks, software architecture, and modern engineering best practices.
- Confidence with observability and monitoring tools, and a track record of improving reliability and operational excellence.
- Strong project leadership skills, including the ability to prioritize across roadmap work, technical debt, and cross-team dependencies.
- Excellent communication and collaboration skills, with the ability to work effectively across engineering, product, design, and business stakeholders.
- Professional proficiency in written and spoken English.
- Experience with Java and modern backend frameworks in production environments is strongly preferred.
- Experience leading teams in agile development environments, including sprint planning, refinement, and cross-functional delivery, is strongly preferred.
- Experience working on search, booking, or other high-throughput systems is a strong plus.

Compensation: Salary consists of three elements: Base pay: from 6000 EUR up to 7080 EUR gross monthly. In addition:

- Significant yearly bonuses, approx 15% percent of annual salary.
- Booking Holdings RSU (Restricted Stock Units) package, worth 50,000 USD gross, with possibility to receive yearly refreshes.

Salary range provided is not final and will be discussed during the process based on your skills and experience.

Benefits and Perks:

- Work from (almost) anywhere for up to 20 days per year
- Funds for your career growth
- Access to thousands of on-demand e-learnings
- Generous additional Health Insurance
- Flexible sick time off
- Additional financial support for your sick leave
- Additional day off on your birthday
- Company-wide vacation week once a year (winter holidays)
- Additional financial support during parental leave
- Free lunch twice a week and daily snacks at the office
- Free yoga twice a week
- Paid volunteering time
- No meeting Fridays
- Office and team events such as summer camp, KAYAK birthday, winter party and more!
- Company-paid therapy sessions through SpringHealth
- Company-paid subscription to HeadSpace
- Internal Communities

Inclusion At KAYAK, we want everyone to have the space to grow, share ideas and do great work. That’s why we’re focused on hiring the best talent from all walks of life and experiences, supporting them well and making sure no one feels like they have to fit a mold to belong here. Need any adjustments for the interview, application or on the job? No problem - just give us a heads-up. We’ve got you.

## #LI-MP1

## About KAYAK

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: KAYAK is the world’s leading travel metasearch engine, enabling travelers to compare flights, hotels, rental cars, and vacation packages from hundreds of sites in one place.
- **Entity Type**: Private (subsidiary of Booking Holdings Inc., NASDAQ: BKNG)
- **Headquarters**: Stamford, Connecticut, USA (with 15 international offices)
- **Founded**: 2004
- **Founders**: Steve Hafner (former CEO until February 2026) and Paul English

## Core Business
- **Primary industry/industries**: Online travel, travel technology, metasearch.
- **Target customers**: B2C (leisure and business travelers) and B2B (travel providers, advertisers, and corporate clients via KAYAK for Business).
- **Mission or purpose statement**: To help travelers make confident travel decisions by providing transparent, comprehensive search results that put control back in their hands. KAYAK believes “travel makes the world better.”

## Products & Services
- **KAYAK Metasearch**: Core product allowing comparison of flights, hotels, rental cars, and vacation packages from hundreds of travel sites.
- **KAYAK for Business (K4B)**: Free corporate travel solution for business travelers.
- **KAYAK Mobile App**: iOS and Android app offering seamless travel planning, price forecasts, price alerts, trip management, and AI-powered search.
- **KAYAK.ai**: AI-powered travel assistant providing personalized tips, live pricing, and conversational booking.
- **Explore Tool**: Inspires spontaneous travel by showing destinations within a chosen budget.
- **Trips**: Personal travel assistant for organizing, managing, and sharing itineraries with real-time flight status.
- **Price Forecast & Alerts**: Predicts price trends and notifies users of changes for flights, hotels, and car rentals.
- **KAYAK for Partners & Advertisers**: Commission-based and advertising revenue models.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not publicly disclosed as a subsidiary; parent Booking Holdings has a market cap of ~$150+ billion (as of mid-2025).
- **Key Metric**: Processes billions of searches annually; 800+ team members; 60+ international sites in 25+ languages.
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: Owned by Booking Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ: BKNG), which acquired KAYAK in 2013. Partners with hundreds of airlines, hotels, online travel agencies, and car rental companies.
- **Growth Signals**: 
  - Named #1 Best Airfare Search Site by Frommer’s (2024, 2025).
  - Won World’s Best Flight & Hotel Comparison Website at World Travel Tech Awards (2022–2024).
  - Recognized by Statista & COMPUTER BILD as a Top Online Platform 2025.
  - First mainstream travel company to introduce AI-powered conversational search (KAYAK AI Mode).
  - Expanded portfolio of 7 travel search brands globally.

## Competitive Advantages
- **First-mover in travel metasearch**: Pioneered the concept in 2004, creating a trusted, comprehensive comparison platform.
- **Unbiased results**: Displays fares from all major providers without favoritism, clearly labeling booking sources.
- **Massive data advantage**: Processes billions of searches, enabling powerful AI/ML tools like Price Forecast and AI Mode.
- **Global brand portfolio**: Manages 7 brands (KAYAK, SWOODOO, checkfelix, momondo, Cheapflights, Mundi, HotelsCombined) with a global footprint.
- **Strong financial backing**: Part of Booking Holdings, providing stability and resources for innovation.
- **High trust & recognition**: Consistently ranked #1 by leading travel publications and awards.

## Strategic Focus
- **AI & personalization**: Leading with AI-powered search and conversational planning to improve user experience.
- **Expanding corporate travel**: Growing KAYAK for Business as a free, self-service corporate travel tool.
- **Global scale**: Continuing to expand international sites and language support.
- **Innovation in search tools**: Developing new features like Price Forecast, Explore, and real-time trip management.
- **Maintaining transparency**: Strengthening trust through clear labeling and fair marketplace practices.

## Why Work Here
- **Culture**: Mission-driven, data-obsessed team of 800+ passionate about travel technology; emphasis on career growth, skill development, and individual learning.
- **Work policy**: Hybrid model – team members work from the office three days a week, with flexibility to come in more often. Some roles are fully remote (US-based).
- **Perks**: Part of a global network including OpenTable and a portfolio of travel metasearch brands; employee-resource groups for under-represented communities; global equal-pay policy.
- **Engineering culture**: Strong focus on data, AI, and scalable systems (billions of queries); tech stack includes modern Java, frontend frameworks, and ETL tools.
- **Global opportunities**: 15 international offices with opportunities to work across teams.
- **Recognition**: Named a top employer by Built In and industry awards.
- **Caution**: KAYAK warns of fraudulent job ads – all genuine recruitment ends with @kayak.com, and no payment is ever requested from candidates.

## Sources
1. [kayak.com](https://www.kayak.com/careers/)
2. [kayak.com](https://www.kayak.com/about)
3. [kayak.com](https://www.kayak.com/c/help/about/)
4. [builtin.com](https://builtin.com/company/kayak)
5. [linkedin.com](https://www.linkedin.com/company/kayak)

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