Backend Engineer
Staff Data Engineer (all genders)
Munich
Apply on the employer's siteRole description
Join Holidu's Data Engineering team in Munich as a Staff Data Engineer. You'll set the technical direction for the data platform and infrastructure the whole company relies on to make decisions — building scalable pipelines and a fast, cost-efficient warehouse on a modern AWS stack (dbt, Airflow, Redshift, Kafka, Terraform), with AI tools like Claude, Codex and Copilot part of the daily workflow. Full-time, permanent, English-speaking team.
Holidu is one of the world’s fastest-growing vacation rental technology companies. Our mission is to make booking and hosting holiday homes free of doubt and full of joy, by helping hosts generate more bookings with less work and helping guests find a holiday home they truly enjoy. Our team of 700 colleagues from 60+ nations shares a passion for tech, an ambition for constant improvement, and a relentless drive to bring the best experience to more than 40k vacation rental hosts and 4 million annual guests.
Your future team
You'll join the Data Engineering team inside our Business Intelligence department. We own the data platform end-to-end, including the infrastructure it runs on: ingesting from every source at Holidu — event tracking, RDS databases, Google Sheets, external APIs — storing it efficiently, keeping queries fast, and serving it to the analytics layer the company runs on (Looker today, built to stay tool-agnostic). We build and run that infrastructure ourselves as code with Terraform. It's a close-knit team of five (three senior engineers, a staff engineer, and a Tech Lead Manager you'll report to), working hand in hand with our analytics and data science teams to turn the tools you build into real impact.
Our Tech Stack
The stack is modern and Python-first
- Data Pipelines: Airflow + dbt-core
- Data Storage & Querying: Redshift (provisioned and serverless), Athena, DuckDB, PySpark
- Cloud & DevOps: AWS EKS (Kubernetes), Terraform, Docker, Jenkins for Continuous Integration and Delivery
- Ingestion: Kafka, Airbyte, Fivetran
- Monitoring: ELK, Grafana, Looker, OpsGenie.
- Automation & AI: Claude, Copilot, Codex are part of the everyday workflow, not an afterthought.
Your role in this journey
- Shape our data platform and the infrastructure it runs on end to end — from ingestion across many sources, through efficient storage and fast queries, to the serving layer the company makes decisions with.
- Design, build and operate reliable data pipelines that ingest data from diverse sources — streaming and batch — and land them as query-ready datasets analysts and scientists depend on.
- Craft the development toolchains and best practices that let analytics, data science and engineering teams build high-quality datasets on their own.
- Own both the architecture and the AWS bill: make the tradeoffs that keep quality and SLAs high without runaway cost, and keep pipeline performance under continuous watch.
- Set technical direction and shape engineering objectives together with engineering managers, researching new solutions and bringing fresh innovations to the platform.
- Grow the team by mentoring engineers, sharing your thinking openly, and helping recruit new talent.
Your backpack is filled with
- 8+ years of experience in Data Engineering, Software Engineering, or a similar role, ideally including time operating at a senior or staff level (for example as a Data Engineer, Analytics Engineer, or BI Engineer).
- Experience building and implementing Lakehouse architectures in AWS or comparable setups.
- Hands-on skills building batch and streaming pipelines with tools like Airflow, dbt, Redshift, Athena/Presto, Firehose, Spark, and SQL databases.
- Strong programming skills in Python and SQL (Java or Kotlin is a plus).
- Solid understanding of distributed systems and DataOps practices such as Infrastructure as Code, CI/CD for data pipelines, automated testing, monitoring and observability, and data quality management.
- Experience with containerization and orchestration technologies (Docker, Kubernetes/EKS).
- Excellent communication skills and a track record of influencing technical direction and aligning solutions with business objectives.
- Experience in Data Governance and enthusiasm for using LLM tools and agents to boost your team's productivity are a plus.
Our adventure includes
- Impact: Shape the future of travel with products used by millions of guests and thousands of hosts. At Holidu ideas become products, data drives decisions, and iteration fuels fast learning. Your work matters—and you’ll see the impact.
- Learning: Grow professionally in a culture that thrives on curiosity and feedback. You’ll learn from outstanding colleagues, collaborate across disciplines, and benefit from mentorship, and personal learning budgets—with a strong focus on AI.
- Great People: Join a team of smart, motivated and international colleagues who challenge and support each other. We celebrate wins and keep our culture fun, ambitious and human. Our customers are guests and hosts—people we can all relate to—making work meaningful and energizing.
- Technology: Work in a modern tech environment. You’ll experience the pace of a scale-up combined with the stability of a proven business model, enabling you to build, test, and improve continuously.
- Flexibility: Work in a hybrid setup with 50%+ in-office time for collaboration, and spend up to 8 weeks a year from other inspiring locations. You’ll stay connected through regular events and meet-ups across our almost 30 offices.
- Perks on Top: Of course, we also offer travel benefits, gym discounts, and other perks to keep you energized—but what truly sets us apart is the chance to grow in a dynamic industry, alongside amazing people, while having fun along the way.
Need a sneak peek?
Check out the adventure that awaits you on Instagram @lifeatholidu and dive straight into the world of Tech at Holidu (https://www.holidu.com/careers/tech) for more insight!
Want to travel with us?
Apply online on our career page! Your first travel contact will be Katharina from HR.
We are committed to diversity in all aspects of our business. We encourage applications from all genders, all corners of the world and all individual backgrounds. You are welcome to submit your application without a photo and without stating your gender, date of birth, marital status, nationality or disability status (if applicable).
If you require any special assistance when arranging interviews, office visits or the recruitment process in general, please contact the relevant HR person responsible for this job and we will do our best to accommodate your needs.
Location
Munich, Germany
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