Principal Engineer, On the Beach
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A product led tech company specialising in the travel sector
Open for applications
A product led tech company specialising in the travel sector
501-1000 employees
Open for applications
+ Share Incentive Plan
501-1000 employees
Company mission
To become Europe’s biggest and most loved online retailer of beach holidays.
Role
Who you are
- Experienced in shaping technical direction and influencing engineering outcomes at scale
- Skilled in designing and optimising search technologies (e.g., Elasticsearch, Solr, OpenSearch, or similar)
- Proficient in Kotlin or Java, and comfortable modernising C# legacy systems
- Knowledgeable in distributed systems, cloud-native architectures (AWS preferred), and modern web technologies
- Adept at leading teams through change and transformation, promoting collaboration and continuous improvement
- A clear and confident communicator, capable of translating complex technical concepts for diverse audiences
What the job involves
- As a Principal Engineer, you’ll play a key role in transforming how millions of people discover, book, and experience travel through our platforms
- This is an opportunity to drive technical innovation at scale while working with cutting-edge technologies across our full stack
- You’ll architect and influence technical decisions that extend beyond individual teams, shaping the foundation of our technology platform
- Your work will directly impact the experiences of our customers while building scalable, reusable patterns that accelerate development across the business
- This role is pivotal in supporting our Head of Engineering to define and deliver the next phase of our technology strategy
- You’ll help lead transformation initiatives, modernise legacy systems, and enhance our search functionality — ensuring performance, scalability, and innovation across the platform
- Partner with the VP of Product Engineering to define the technical strategy, architectural direction, and transformation roadmap
- Lead the design and optimisation of search systems, ensuring relevance, scalability, and reliability
- Oversee the evolution of existing systems — maintaining and refactoring C# codebases while building and migrating services in Kotlin or Java
- Champion engineering best practices across security, performance, testing, and continuous delivery
- Provide architectural leadership across multiple teams, establishing standards and reusable patterns that scale
- Mentor and empower engineers to grow their technical and leadership capabilities
- Collaborate closely with Product, Data, and Platform teams to deliver complex change with measurable impact
- Lead transformation and modernisation initiatives, balancing technical ambition with business priorities
Our take
With around 80% of UK citizens’ holidays booked online, On The Beach has become a challenger brand in the beach and package holiday sector. With around two million people using its platform to book their holidays abroad, it utilises brand partnerships to provide a wealth of discounts and deals for holidaymakers.
Having entered the London Stock Exchange in 2015, On The Beach has grown its brand since 2004. It shows no signs of slowing down either, with revenue surging in 2025 to set the company up for a new objective. It will now use its growing AI toolkit to disrupt the cruise holiday market, a fast-growing travel sector that the company has not yet capitalised on.
Freddie
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
Company
Company benefits
- 📅25 days holiday
- 🥳 An extra day off on your birthday!
- 💷Option to buy extra annual leave
- Discount on holidays.. Plus two bonus days off (a take-off and landing day) to start and end your On the Beach holiday in the right way!
- Flexible working hours and hybrid working
- Access to Learnerbly learning platform
- With a personal allowance to support your own personal development
- Family friendly policies
- Including enhanced maternity, paternity, shared parental leave and adoption pay, plus other family friendly support
- Employee Assistance Programme
- Including access to free counselling and GP appointments
- Share Incentive Plan (SIP)
- Onsite subsidised coffee shop
- Sandbox (our very own bar)
- Gym discounts
- Food and drink discounts
- Regular social events
- Cycle to work scheme
- Simplyhealth Optimise Health Plan
Company HQ
Manchester, UK
Articles
Leadership
Shaun Morton
(CEO)Previously CFO at On The Beach, Director of Finance at ghd and a Senior Manager of Commercial Finance at Asda.
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