---
title: 'Software Engineer  (Backend) at Duffel'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/software-engineer-backend-duffel-london-jsmzrzwag0yp'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-11'
---

# Software Engineer  (Backend) at Duffel

- **Company:** Duffel
- **Location:** London, United Kingdom
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Posted:** 2026-05-28
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-11
- **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/duffel/4eac1fa4-85ca-409f-8eaf-38c32e13a3f9/application

**Skills:** Elixir, Phoenix, Kubernetes, Google Cloud Platform

> Join Duffel's API team in London to rebuild travel infrastructure by designing beautiful APIs and integrating with travel providers. This role focuses on strong engineering fundamentals, code quality, and creating a great developer experience for millions of bookings.

## Job description

Software Engineer London | Full-time | Hybrid | Shoreditch/Liverpool Street

Create the Future of Travel With Us Whether it's visiting the people closest to us, starting an exciting adventure, or a career-defining business trip, travel is essential.

Yet we've all experienced the aches and pains of getting to our destination.

More than 4 billion airline passengers rely on technology that hasn't kept up with modern expectations. That's why we're rebuilding the infrastructure that underpins the travel industry - simplifying systems and building tools that will make the future of travel effortless.

We were part of Y Combinator S18's cohort and we're backed by Benchmark, Blossom, Index Ventures, and Kima Ventures - a fantastic set of investors that has helped build some of the world's largest companies.

Our London team is growing, and we're looking for talented people to join us on our journey.

Engineering at Duffel We're building tools to simplify travel distribution, search, and booking through one seamless API. The technical challenge? Design a beautiful API, then integrate it with hundreds of travel providers - each with different systems and requirements - whilst delivering a fantastic developer experience.

We work with Elixir, Phoenix, Kubernetes, and Google Cloud Platform, but we value strong engineering fundamentals over specific tech experience.

You'll Thrive Here If: ✅ You're passionate about designing beautiful APIs and creating great developer experiences ✅ You have a high bar for code quality and API design ✅ You have opinions on good engineering standards and processes as we define ours at Duffel ✅ You think big picture - making tradeoffs between technical work and business impact ✅ You communicate clearly, articulating what you're working on and why in a structured way ✅ You thrive collaboratively - you believe in your methods but stay open to feedback and suggestions

Bonus: Experience in travel, flights, hotels, or cars

What You'll Get: 💰 Competitive salary + equity (you'll own part of Duffel) 🏝️ Work from anywhere policy 🛩️ Duffel travel allowance (use what we build) 🍼 Matched parental leave 🧘‍♂️ Sabbatical programme (3 months full pay)

🪩 Office in Shoreditch + regular team socials

## Why Now Matters

You'll work on the core API powering millions of travel bookings. Early-stage role = outsized impact on how we build and scale.

## About Duffel

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Duffel provides easy-to-use APIs and software tools that allow any business to shop, book, and manage flights, hotel stays, and travel extras without the complexity of legacy travel infrastructure.
- **Entity Type**: Private (VC-backed; Series B)
- **Headquarters**: London, United Kingdom
- **Founded**: 2017
- **Founders**: Not publicly available (CEO is Steve Domin)

## Core Business
- **Primary Industries**: Travel technology, SaaS / API infrastructure
- **Target Customers**: B2B – startups, challenger banks, spend management platforms, and large enterprises that want to sell travel online
- **Mission / Purpose**: "To make travel effortless" by rebuilding the software layer that underpins the global travel industry [duffel.com/about-us](https://duffel.com/about-us)

## Products & Services
- **Flights API**: Complete flight shopping, booking, order management, and ancillaries (seats, bags) with access to global airline content via Duffel’s own accreditation and ticketing authority.
- **Stays API**: Earn commission on over 1 million properties worldwide; build hotel shopping experiences with rich content and loyalty benefits.
- **Ancillaries Component**: Pre-built UI for seat selection and baggage (and more) that can be dropped into any web or mobile experience.
- **Loyalty & Payments**: Features to offer loyalty programme perks and integrated payment flows.
- **Front-end Components**: Customisable, ready-made shopping interfaces (e.g., autocomplete flight search) for rapid integration.

All products are delivered as RESTful APIs with client libraries in Node.js, Python, and Ruby, plus comprehensive documentation and user guides [duffel.com](https://duffel.com/).

## Market Standing
- **Valuation**: Not disclosed
- **Key Metric**: Total funding – **$56.3M** raised across four rounds:
  - Seed (Aug 2018): $4.8M led by Blossom Capital
  - Series A (Jun 2019): $21.5M led by Benchmark
  - Series B (Oct 2019): $30M led by Index Ventures
  - An earlier $125K seed round (Sep 2018) also noted [linkedin.com](https://uk.linkedin.com/company/duffelhq)
- **Estimated Annual Revenue**: $1.4M (private company estimate, per LinkedIn data)
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: Benchmark, Index Ventures, Blossom Capital, Y Combinator (S18), Kima Ventures; partners include some of the world’s leading airlines.
- **Growth Signals**:
  - Headcount of ~41 employees (+16.1% YoY)
  - Active hiring in Engineering, Customer Success, and Partnerships (12 open positions as of mid-2026)
  - Operating in 5 countries (UK, US, Spain, South Africa, Denmark)
  - New product launches (Ancillaries component, Stays API, loyalty features) [linkedin.com](https://uk.linkedin.com/company/duffelhq)

## Competitive Advantages
- **Proprietary accreditation & ticketing authority** – enables direct access to global airline content without each customer needing their own license.
- **Developer-first approach** – modern, well-documented APIs with client libraries in multiple languages and pre-built UI components.
- **Full-stack travel platform** – covers flights, stays, ancillaries, and payments in a single integration.
- **Focus on rewriting legacy infrastructure** – removes the archaic software hurdles that have historically blocked new entrants from selling travel.

## Strategic Focus
- Deepen the product suite (rooms, ancillaries, loyalty) to become the single API layer for all travel.
- Expand into verticals like challenger banks and spend management (e.g., “Duffel for Spend Management”).
- Scale partnerships with more airlines and property providers globally.
- Continue hiring engineers and customer success teams to support enterprise clients and geographic expansion.

## Why Work Here
- **Hybrid & Flexible**: Office two days per week in London; 60 days per year work from anywhere globally.
- **Time Off & Leave**: 27 days annual leave plus public holidays; 26 weeks fully paid parental/adoption leave; 12-week sabbatical after 4 years.
- **Compensation & Equity**: Competitive base salary reviewed annually, stock options, pension match up to 5%.
- **Perks**: Duffel Travel Allowance (stipend to spend on flights), private healthcare, learning & development budget, up to 4 study days per year, paid volunteering day.
- **Engineering Culture**: Modern stack (Node.js, Python, Ruby, APIs), focus on AI and backend roles. Team alumni from Monzo, Deliveroo, GoCardless, and Paddle.
- **Interview Process**: Online application → recruiter call → first interview → final-stage interviews (typically a half-day on Zoom) [duffel.com/careers](https://duffel.com/careers).

## Sources
1. [duffel.com/about-us](https://duffel.com/about-us)
2. [duffel.com/careers](https://duffel.com/careers)
3. [duffel.com](https://duffel.com/)
4. [linkedin.com/company/duffelhq](https://uk.linkedin.com/company/duffelhq)
5. [jobs.lever.co/duffel](https://jobs.lever.co/duffel)

## Other roles at Duffel

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