Principal Engineer, Travel Management

Hotel Engine

Principal Engineer at Engine leading the transition to distributed systems in travel management. Driving architectural best practices and collaborating across teams for enhanced performance.

Posted 4/15/2026full-timeRemote • 🇺🇸 United StatesLead💰 $174,845 - $242,000 per yearWebsite

Tech Stack

Tools & technologies

AWSCloudDistributed SystemsGRPC

About the role

Key responsibilities & impact

Define and champion architectural best practices, helping teams design services that are modular, maintainable, and aligned with long-term business needs.
Lead the transition from monoliths to distributed systems, ensuring scalability, resilience, and long-term maintainability.
Shape the technical roadmap, working with engineering leaders to drive key decisions around service design, data flow, and system interactions.
Dive deep into technical challenges, collaborating with engineers to solve complex problems and ensure high-quality implementations.
Mentor and influence engineers, fostering a culture of strong engineering fundamentals, service ownership, and thoughtful system design.
Collaborate across teams to ensure our architecture supports business needs without unnecessary complexity.

Requirements

What you’ll need

12+ years of experience designing and evolving high-scale distributed systems.
Strong architectural leadership—you have driven major technical initiatives across multiple teams and influenced engineering direction at an organizational level.
Expertise in designing modular, loosely coupled systems, with experience breaking down monolithic applications into well-structured services.
Proven ability to guide teams through complex technical challenges, making high-impact decisions in ambiguous environments.
Mastery of cloud environments and services (AWS preferred), including best practices for building reliable, scalable systems.
Experience designing APIs and defining clear service boundaries, ensuring interoperability and maintainability.
Deep understanding of distributed system patterns, including event-driven architectures, data consistency models, and service communication strategies (REST, gRPC, messaging).
Strong problem-solving skills and a pragmatic approach—you know when to apply best practices versus when to adapt to practical constraints.
Excellent collaboration and communication skills, with experience influencing engineering teams and leadership without direct authority.

Benefits

Comp & perks

Compensation: Competitive base pay tied to role and experience, with opportunities for bonuses, commissions, and equity.
Benefits: Check out our full list at engine.com/culture.

ATS Keywords

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Applicant Tracking System Keywords

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Hard Skills & Tools

architectural best practicesdistributed systemsmodular systemscloud environmentsAWSAPI designevent-driven architecturesdata consistency modelsRESTgRPC

Soft Skills

architectural leadershipproblem-solvingcollaborationcommunicationmentoringinfluencingdecision-makingadaptabilityteam guidanceculture fostering