---
title: 'Engineering Team Lead (Java, AI-native) at HRS'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/engineering-team-lead-java-ai-native-hrs-ho-chi-minh-2s99a1wmnsdt'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-21'
---

# Engineering Team Lead (Java, AI-native) at HRS

- **Company:** HRS
- **Location:** Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Work type:** hybrid
- **Posted:** 2026-08-24
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-21
- **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/hrs/fe05627c-738c-41c8-9c80-b84952f5bf4a

## Job description

HRS As a Company HRS is a global technology company transforming how businesses manage lodging and meetings through AI-driven, data-centric solutions. With more than 50 years of experience, HRS serves global enterprises, hotel partners, and business travelers through Lodging-as-a-Service, Meeting-as-a-Service, and Workforce-as-a-Service offerings.

Business Unit The Search & Book unit at HRS plays a pivotal role in delivering innovative solutions through HRS Connect, the company's flagship product within the expansive global corporate travel management market. HRS Connect specifically targets the rapidly growing and significantly underserved segments of corporate lodging, meetings, groups, and long stays. The unit develops, enhances, and maintains complex technology solutions that seamlessly integrate hotel distribution systems, Property Management Systems (PMS), Online Travel Agencies (OTA), and Hotel Chain systems into the HRS Connect platform. Leveraging robust connectivity, innovative technology, and data-driven insights, the unit ensures seamless connectivity, optimized travel spend, enhanced traveler experiences, and high-performance booking solutions for global enterprise customers.

Position We are looking for an Engineering Team Lead in HCM City, Vietnam. This is a hands-on leadership role for a business-critical product area. The ETL will lead an engineering team, own engineering delivery for the core booking infrastructure and grow an AI-native team from day one. This is not a pure people-management role. You will lead engineers, own delivery, stay close to architecture, and set the operating model for how the team uses AI in daily engineering work: Spec-Driven Development, AI-assisted code review, test generation, regression analysis, documentation, and production diagnosis.

Challenges

- Own engineering delivery for the Booking Engine, Offer Engine, Reservation Engine and related rate-management services.
- Lead the team-wide AI-native operating model: Spec-Driven Development, AI-assisted code review, agentic SDLC, and measurable cycle-time improvement.
- Drive performance and reliability improvement across latency, throughput, uptime, observability, and operational response.
- Own engineering health: code quality, test coverage, defect escape ratio, CI/CD discipline, observability, and incident response.
- Lead modernization of backend systems, including legacy Java components, JBoss-based services, and tightly coupled Maven architecture.
- Lead technical decisions across Java, AWS ECS, PostgreSQL, Redis/Valkey, distributed transaction processing, and rate-engine trade-offs.
- Hire, onboard, coach, and performance-manage the new Vietnam engineers.

## What You Bring

## Experience

- 7+ years of hands-on software engineering experience in enterprise SaaS, fintech, e-commerce, or high-throughput transactional systems.
- 3+ years in a technical leadership role, owning both delivery and people outcomes.
- Practical experience leading a team through product growth, technical modernization, or major backend platform ownership.
- Strong experience with Java, AWS, and modern cloud-native backend engineering.

Technical Depth

- Strong understanding of distributed systems, API design, data modeling, caching, latency, throughput, transaction integrity, and reliability trade-offs.
- Practical experience building or operating transaction-heavy backend systems - payments, bookings, order management, pricing engines, or equivalent.
- Hands-on experience with PostgreSQL, Redis/Valkey or equivalent in-memory stores, and wide-column stores such as Cassandra.
- Experience running containerized backend services on AWS ECS, EKS, or equivalent platforms.
- Strong engineering discipline around CI/CD, automated testing, observability, SLOs, and incident response.
- Track record of modernizing legacy Java stacks (e.g. older JVM versions, legacy application servers, tightly coupled multi-module builds) without disrupting business-critical traffic.

AI-Native Engineering

- Demonstrated, hands-on application of AI tools across the full SDLC as a development paradigm: specification, design, implementation, code review, testing, and operations.
- Practical experience with Spec-Driven Development - writing specifications precise enough to drive AI-generated implementations and verifying the output against the spec.
- Comfortable orchestrating agentic workflows in the dev loop and setting clear human-in-the-loop boundaries for tasks that affect production.
- Track record of measuring and improving AI-driven engineering productivity (cycle time, output per engineer, defect escape ratio) and treating AI adoption as a measurable engineering outcome rather than a vibe.
- Capable of modelling and coaching an AI-native engineering culture so that the team's standard way of working is AI-assisted, not the exception.

People Leadership

- Proven ability to lead, coach, and grow engineers through structured 1:1s, career development frameworks, and performance management.
- Experience hiring and building high-performing teams; strong interviewing and calibration skills.
- Empathetic and direct communicator who creates psychological safety and high accountability in equal measure.

Reliability & Observability

- Experience defining and operating against SLOs/SLAs on transactional systems; familiar with distributed tracing, structured logging, alerting, and incident management practices.
- Track record of building on-call culture and improving system reliability over time.
- Proven track record of applying engineering best practices - fault tolerance, redundancy, graceful degradation, runbook discipline, and incident learning - to achieve and sustain 99.99% system availability in production environments.
- Practical understanding of operational requirements for booking, reservation, and rate platforms where correctness, response time, and recovery behavior directly affect customer outcomes.

Leadership & Communication

- Effective at aligning technical strategy with business goals and communicating across a wide range of stakeholders.
- Comfortable operating in a matrix organization and driving cross-functional initiatives.
- Strong written and verbal communication skills in English.

Adaptability

- Thrives in a fast-paced, evolving environment. Embraces change and brings structure without rigidity.
- Able to balance long-term architectural vision with near-term delivery commitments.

Personal Attributes

- High ownership and self-direction; product development mindset, not ticket execution.
- Empathy, authenticity, integrity, commitment, resilience, and respect in dealing with all stakeholders

## About HRS

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: HRS is a global technology platform that reimagines corporate lodging and meetings management through an AI-powered end-to-end SaaS solution.
- **Entity Type**: Private (Bootstrapped, owned by CEO Tobias Ragge)
- **Headquarters**: Cologne, Germany
- **Founded**: 1972
- **Founders**: Founded as a regional reservation service; current CEO and owner is Tobias Ragge

## Core Business
- **Primary Industry**: Corporate travel management (lodging and meetings), Fintech (payment solutions), Sustainability tech (Green Stay Initiative)
- **Target Customers**: B2B — Enterprise (Fortune 500), SMBs, and business travelers
- **Mission/Purpose**: "To reinvent the way business travelers can STAY, WORK and PAY" by challenging legacy structures and over-engineered ecosystems.

## Products & Services
- **[HRS Connect](https://corporate.hrs.com/)**: An all-in-one booking and procurement platform for lodging (transient, groups, longstay) and meetings. It connects to GDS, non-GDS, OTA, and direct inventory, automates rate filtering, rebooking, payment, and invoicing.
- **[HRS Copilot](https://corporate.hrs.com/)**: A patent-pending AI-powered assistant that provides real-time, data-driven recommendations to optimize savings, compliance, traveler satisfaction, and carbon emissions. Integrates with existing tech stacks and expense systems.
- **[HRS Green Stay](https://corporate.hrs.com/)**: An ISO 14067-certified initiative that provides science-based property-level data on water, waste, and energy consumption, enabling companies to report, reduce, and remove CO₂ emissions from hotel stays. HRS is a Climate Pledge signatory.
- **[HRS Payment Solutions](https://corporate.hrs.com/)**: Automated payment and invoicing tools that include VAT reclaim, line-item invoice data, and credit card rebate optimization.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation**: Not publicly available (privately held by CEO)
- **Key Metric**: Annual Revenue not disclosed; the company serves **35% of Fortune 500 companies** [corporate.hrs.com](https://corporate.hrs.com/).
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: HRS is privately owned. It partners with 200+ solutions (TMCs, OBTs, expense and payment systems). Strategic equity investment in Itelya for integrated payment solutions.
- **Growth Signals**:
    - Recognized among **Germany’s TOP 100 Most Innovative Companies** [corporate.hrs.com](https://corporate.hrs.com/about).
    - Member of the **Global Sustainable Tourism Council**.
    - **EcoVadis Bronze Medal** (top 35% globally) for sustainability management.
    - Operates in **30 markets** globally including London, Milan, Mumbai, New York, Paris, San Francisco, Seoul, Tokyo, and Sydney [jobs.hrs.com](https://jobs.hrs.com/content/Our-history/?locale=en_US).

## Competitive Advantages
- **Data-First Moat**: Their patented rate filter, automated rebooking, and Copilot AI generate unique, actionable data that creates lock-in with enterprise clients.
- **End-to-End Automation**: Unlike traditional TMCs, HRS offers a fully automated process from procurement to payment and reclaim, reducing manual work and delivering VAT rebates.
- **Sustainability Standard-Setting**: The Green Stay Initiative is a first-of-its-kind, science-based, ISO-certified tool that directly ties sustainability data into procurement decisions.
- **50-Year Heritage + Startup Agility**: Described as a "50-year-old start-up," they combine the stability of a mature company with the innovation culture of a tech firm.

## Strategic Focus
- **AI-First Transformation**: Deepening the role of Copilot to move from a booking tool to a strategic decision-making assistant for travel and procurement managers.
- **Fintech Expansion**: Integrating payment and invoicing deeper into the platform to create a unified "stay, work, pay" experience (e.g., investment in Itelya).
- **Net-Zero Leadership**: Pledging net-zero carbon emissions by 2040 (a decade ahead of the Paris Agreement) and scaling the Green Stay initiative globally.
- **Platform Convergence**: Unifying lodging, meetings, and longstay under a single, seamless interface to increase adoption and spend visibility.

## Why Work Here
- **Culture**: Described as a "tribe of Intrapreneurs" with a focus on entrepreneurship, passion, enthusiasm, and teaming. The CEO Tobias Ragge says: "Be a missionary, work hard, have fun, and make history" [jobs.hrs.com](https://jobs.hrs.com/content/Culture/?locale=en_US).
- **Diversity**: Over **850 employees** representing **57 nationalities**, with a strong emphasis on DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion) [jobs.hrs.com](https://jobs.hrs.com/content/Culture/?locale=en_US).
- **Remote/Hybrid Policy**: Not explicitly stated as fully remote. The company operates from 30+ global markets (Cologne HQ, London, New York, San Francisco, etc.), suggesting a hybrid or in-office collaborative environment depending on role.
- **Perks & Engineering Culture**:
    - Ranked among Germany’s TOP 100 most innovative companies, indicating strong R&D and engineering investment.
    - Culture of "learning from failure and scaling through operational excellence."
    - Opportunity to work on cutting-edge AI, fintech, and sustainability solutions at a global scale.
    - Young, agile environment with a 50-year history of stability.

## Sources
1. [corporate.hrs.com](https://corporate.hrs.com/) – Official corporate site (products, mission, partners)
2. [corporate.hrs.com/about](https://corporate.hrs.com/about) – About page (history, leadership, sustainability, DEI)
3. [jobs.hrs.com](https://jobs.hrs.com/content/Culture/?locale=en_US) – Culture and careers page
4. [jobs.hrs.com](https://jobs.hrs.com/content/Our-history/?locale=en_US) – History & team success factors
5. [jobs.ashbyhq.com/hrs](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/hrs) – Official careers portal (Ashby)

## Other roles at HRS

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- [Engineering Team Lead](https://feeny.ai/job/engineering-team-lead-hrs-mohali-k7pq0ghn41e0) — Mohali, India
- [Cash Collection Specialist](https://feeny.ai/job/cash-collection-specialist-hrs-mumbai-hvb292t23e8k) — Mumbai, India
- [Billing Specialist](https://feeny.ai/job/billing-specialist-hrs-mumbai-q54qercrxmvt) — Mumbai, India
- [Product Marketing Manager - Meetings (all genders)](https://feeny.ai/job/product-marketing-manager-meetings-all-genders-hrs-berlin-41b202g19d2c) — Berlin, Germany
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- [Senior Customer Success Manager - Public Sector (all genders)](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-customer-success-manager-public-sector-all-genders-hrs-cologne-mp1b7g6hp7j0) — Cologne, Germany
- [Account Executive](https://feeny.ai/job/account-executive-hrs-tokyo-6dcmgd81r4xj) — Tokyo, Japan