Senior Development Manager

Senior Development Manager – AI-Centric Backend Engineering Leader Base pay range

$/yr - $/yr

We are rebuilding and modernizing a large-scale technology platform that enables businesses to book, manage, and optimize travel  part of this transformation, we are seeking a Senior Development Manager who is deeply AI-centric, strong in backend engineering, and comfortable leading while remaining hands‑on.

This role is for a technical leader who writes production code, leads small, high‑impact backend teams, and actively leverages AI to design, build, test, and manage modern cloud‑native systems.

• AI-First Technical Leadership
  • Champion an AI‑centric development mindset across backend teams.
• Guide engineers in using AI tools for:
  • System design and architecture exploration
  • Code generation, refactoring, and optimization
  • Test generation and validation
  • Technical documentation and design artifacts
  • Critically evaluate AI‑generated outputs, ensuring correctness, scalability, and security.
  • Establish standards for responsible, high‑quality AI usage in engineering workflows.
  • Provide architectural leadership for scalable, resilient, high‑performance backend systems.
  • Lead the design and implementation of cloud‑native, serverless services and APIs.
  • Participate deeply in system design reviews, architectural planning, and technical decision‑making.
  • Review code and designs to maintain high standards of quality, performance, and maintainability.
• Hands‑On Development
  • Write and review production‑quality backend code.
  • Support development of services, APIs, and integrations across internal and third‑party systems.
  • Help define and reinforce engineering standards, patterns, and best practices.
  • Serve as a technical escalation point for complex backend and platform challenges.
  • Lead, mentor, and coach engineers across one or more backend teams.
  • Manage leaders and senior engineers who act as owners, not just implementers.
  • Partner closely with Product Owners, QA, Dev Ops, and Operations.
  • Foster a culture of accountability, collaboration, continuous learning, and technical excellence.
  • Guide teams through change during active platform modernization.
• Platform Modernization & Operational Excellence
  • Help drive a large‑scale replatforming effort, rebuilding core platform components.
  • Balance “Keep the lights on” responsibilities for existing systems with parallel development of the future‑state platform.
  • Ensure systems are observable, reliable, and supportable in production.
  • Guide best practices around logging, monitoring, alerting, and incident response.
  • Mentor engineers working on both legacy and modern architectures.

• AI & Engineering Leadership
  • Demonstrated experience using AI as a core part of software development, not just experimentation.
  • Strong ability to question, validate, and redirect AI‑generated designs and code.
  • Experience shaping AI outputs into high‑quality, production‑ready solutions.
  • Proven technical leadership in backend‑focused teams.
  • Extensive experience building backend systems using Node.js and Type Script.
  • Strong background in RESTful APIs, microservices, and distributed systems.
  • Deep understanding of backend architecture, system design, and scalability.
  • Experience with serverless and cloud‑native architectures.
• Hands‑On AWS Experience
  • Lambda
  • API Gateway
  • DynamoDB
  • SQS
  • S3
  • Cloud Watch
  • Experience with infrastructure‑as‑code (Cloud Formation and/or CDK).
  • Familiarity with CI/CD pipelines and modern Dev Ops practices.
  • Experience operating and supporting production systems at scale.
• Data & Persistence
  • Experience with both data modeling and performance optimization skills.
• General Qualifications
  • Strong foundation in software engineering best practices and design patterns.
  • Experience with Git, automated testing, and code review processes.
  • Excellent communication skills with both technical and non‑technical stakeholders.
  • Self‑directed, pragmatic, and comfortable owning complex, ambiguous initiatives.

• Prior experience as a Senior Engineering Manager, Development Manager, or Director.
• Experience modernizing or replatforming large or legacy systems.
• Experience in high‑transaction or platform‑based domains (travel, booking, payments, etc.).
• Experience working with globally distributed teams.

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field — or equivalent professional experience.

Mid‑Senior level

Full‑time

Information Technology

Information Services and Travel Arrangements

• Medical insurance
• Vision insurance
• 401(k)