Director of

Engineering - DMLP
EBIDTA 2022
$ 5.3 billion

Net Income 2022

$ 3.058 billion

Q4 Earnings 2022
$ 4 billion
Rob Francis

Job Title: SVP/ CTO

Location: Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Professional Background:
As Chief Technology Officer (CTO), Rob Francis leads Booking.com’s
full stack technology strategy to support the company’s continued
growth as a global technology leader in travel, working to create an
even more seamless end-to-end experience for travelers. With a
history at high-performing organizations in the e-commerce and
consumer technology space, Rob’s expertise in legacy modernisation,
engineering, software development, corporate systems and evolving
tech infrastructure helps to drive the Booking.com vision for products
and technology that enable travelers to experience the world.

Previously, Rob held leadership roles at Sonos - where he led the

evolution from project-based mindset to engineering platforms, in
addition to establishing a software development function in Customer
Care and an Enterprise Information Security function - and prior to
that at Amazon.com. Rob spent the early part of his career in
application engineering and enterprise architecture at financial
institutions including JP Morgan and Lehman Brothers.

Rob holds a bachelor’s degree in Computer

Science from Indiana University and currently
lives in Amsterdam.
Our Data & Machine Learning Platform (DMLP) organization is accountable for providing services that
support the data modernization across Booking.com, so that more business value can be extracted out
of our data, e.g. more personalization, loyalty and segmentation. Therefore, from production to
consumption, we provide an E2E modernized data infrastructure that enables the production and
consumption of owned, available and quality data. Our Foundational Capabilities are built on Data
Governance policies to enable reliable data management across Booking.com.

We have just set on this journey, and as Director of Engineering you would be coming in from the
ground to define and drive the (technology) strategy to extract more value out of our data. These
would be the type of services under your ownership:

● Data consumption platform including consumption through workflows, machine learning and
data warehousing
● Data production platform including governed ingestion into our cloud data platform
● Foundational capabilities such as cloud data storage and data management capabilities

We hire the best and the brightest professionals, and we empower them to innovate, you need to have:

● Technology leadership experience at driving frameworks and foundational services

● Deep technical experience as this is an foundational role in the guts of our platforms
● Technology thought leadership on reliability engineering, operational excellence and quality
engineering
● Strong understanding of distributed systems and SOA
● Solid awareness of emerging technology trends that enable a world class developer experience
● Ability to lead a team of top talent in an engineering organisation consisting of Frameworks,
Middleware, Critical Services, Data Platform, Systems Engineering

The role will be based in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

People & Function Leadership

● Lead, inspire and motivate your Engineering function through leading by example and
defining what success looks like, giving ownership and providing clarity when
necessary
● Line manage Senior Managers as well as top technical talent, such as Principals
● Communicate strategy in a compelling manner to multiple teams and relevant
stakeholders
● Foster inclusion by holding self and others accountable
● Drive people centric initiatives that enable workforce diversity
● Partner in and outside of our Business unit to lead and shape the people agenda across
Booking.com
● Create a learning environment by coaching, maintaining two-way feedback, helping
people extract and share personal learnings, and supporting teams to constantly adapt
● Foster the engineering culture; innovate, work as a team and celebrate success
● Build a world class team through nurturing, attracting, and retaining tech talent from
around the world
● Empower your teams to do their best work at Booking.com
● Be curious, learn, iterate and shape our culture
Technology, Craft & Delivery Leadership

● Lead, influence and own delivery within your function including department goals
● Partner with other functions and business units to deliver on our strategic agenda
● Maintain focus on the end goal, minimise risk and remove roadblocks for our strategic
agenda
● Ensure clear and effective communication at all levels: proactively keep all stakeholders
informed of what’s happening, upcoming changes, projects, issues and risks
● Foster mastery in engineering craftsmanship across Booking.com including shaping
ways of working
● Own Technology-wide topics and help lead and grow the department
● Embed Agile ways of working and values within the organisation
● Identify problems and significantly improve, change or adapt existing methods and
techniques drawing from personal experiences and feedback
● Drive a DevOps culture
Technology, Architecture & Product Strategy

● Shape, define and build new services, processes and operational plans in alignment
with the needs of the business
● Lead, take ownership and shape the technology strategic objectives and roadmaps
● Be a strategic thought partner and influence stakeholders across the Booking.com and
align the strategic direction of your function
● Make decisions in complex and ambiguous situations, and guide others in their decision
making by recognizing and challenging assumptions, introducing relevant data and
multiple perspectives
● Ensure that the Booking architecture principles and engineering practices are adhered
to, and that there is direction and alignment for each product
● Anticipate the need for changes based on context, and set renewed courses of action to
engage teams and achieve goals, while striving to make the impact clear and
understandable
● Drive innovation in your function
● Own the architecture across your function
● 8+ years of Tech leadership experience
● Demonstrable experience of building, shaping and leading a cross functional
Engineering function or business unit at scale (50+ people)
● Deep understanding of technology, with a proven track record of designing and building
data and machine learning platform at scale
● Highly familiar with the current best in class big data technologies such as data
warehouses, data lakes, data processing pipelines, machine learning platforms for
training, building, testing and deploying ML models.
● Familiarity with at least one public cloud technologies and best ways to leverage them
for processing data and ML at scale.
● Proven ability to contribute to system design, architecture, and problem solving
conversations. Ability to get deep into technical details when needed
● Able to provide technical direction to the teams (driving tech strategy, making build v
buy decisions, prioritising etc.)
● Great collaboration on technology topics; the successful candidate should be able to
work with their counterparts in other organisations, including Senior Architects and
Fellows
● Demonstrable experience of working in Agile environments and more importantly an
Agile culture and ethos
● Demonstrable experience of setting, leading and influencing both the Engineering and
Business strategy to the medium and long-term
● Experience with managing and coaching teams of senior tech leaders including building
and growing teams
● Independent, pragmatic and proactive work attitude
● Well versed in Engineering Craftsmanship
● Building a DevOps culture
● Be humble and human
● Excellent communication skills
● Strong commercial acumen
● Experience with 3rd party vendor relationships and integrations would be an advantage
Useful links:

● Interview Rob Francis CTO

● Podcast with our CEO
● Booking Technology Blog
● Women in Technology
● Booking Holdings Business
Results

Get in touch
Vincent Poos, Principal Recruiter,
vincent.poos@booking.com
Camille Lehmann, Senior
Leadership Sourcer
camille.lehmann@booking.com