Development Director-Groupon Global Travel

Groupon is working on lots of cool technology (beyond group buying) to make life easier and more affordable for people who love to travel.

Do you love to travel? Do online travel agencies frustrate you with how they make is so difficult to search for and book vacations at the best price? The Groupon Global Travel team (Getaways) is reshaping the way consumers think about buying online travel. Launched in July 2011, Groupon Global Travel is the suitcase-toting team dedicated to Groupon’s travel vertical.

We’re not your typical online travel platform. We are working to create packages that delight both suppliers and Groupon subscriber alike. For lodging, we focus on independent and boutique properties as well as chains and B&Bs and listen to their needs to craft a deal that is going to get them the customers that they want, when they want them. There is a lot more to come. Out with the old ways of features that serve as price comparisons. We’re in the business of featuring travel for everything it is - opportunities for our customers to relax, enjoy themselves, share special moments and be delighted.

As part of this effort we have several projects underway and more coming to significantly improve and enhance our travel related offering.

In this role you will be part of a small entrepreneurial team who are pioneering new online travel paradigms. You will engineer multiple travel related e-commerce software development projects and own the status of every factor in a technology project’s success.

We are looking for someone who:

● Is not only a manager, but also a leader.
● Will set the overall vision, goals, direction for the team and oversee the performance of the entire team
● Is passionate about recruiting and inspires top development talent to join the team
● Is flexible and adaptable, and can reorganize resources to meet changing needs
● Can mentor, motivate, and foster innovation in team members
● Can build partnerships with internal teams across a global geography, external partners and business partners to optimize delivery
● Is highly technical and hands on - can guide architectural decisions and is enthusiastic about diving into code

Requirements
● Has experience building teams of 15+ developers, test engineers, managers, principal engineers and project managers
● Seven or more years of experience in software design and development
● Expertise in e-commerce technologies, scalable systems, and data infrastructure
● Strong understanding of instrumenting and optimizing software to maximize business metrics
● Online travel related experience is a major plus.
● BS, MS or PhD in Computer Science or equivalent