Job Summary:
Agoda is a global travel platform that aims to make travel easier for everyone. They are seeking a Senior Lead Software Engineer to define and drive the technical direction of their Tax technology ecosystem, focusing on building resilient, enterprise-grade solutions that support their global financial operations.
Responsibilities:
• Shape the technical direction, architecture strategy, and long-term roadmap for Agoda’s Tax technology ecosystem, aligning Finance, regulatory, product, and engineering goals.
• Own the architecture of mission-critical platforms and capabilities, ensuring they are scalable, secure, resilient, observable, and adaptable to Agoda’s global scale, with the key starting focus being the Tax platform.
• Design end-to-end solutions across internal systems, tax engines, APIs, data flows, and selected third-party platforms where they create clear business and technical value.
• Work hands-on with engineering teams on key technical decisions, system design, implementation trade-offs, proof-of-concepts, and critical architecture components.
• Lead architectural reviews and provide expert guidance on system design, integration patterns, reliability, maintainability, performance, and operational readiness.
• Translate complex tax rules, compliance requirements, and financial workflows into clear technical models that engineering teams can build, evolve, and operate effectively.
• Analyze Agoda’s current Tax technology landscape, identify systemic risks, duplication, inefficiencies, and modernization opportunities, and define practical transition paths toward the future state.
• Establish and evolve architecture principles, engineering standards, documentation, and governance practices that improve quality without slowing delivery.
• Drive improvements in quality, velocity, cost efficiency, scalability, and developer productivity across Tax-related systems and adjacent FinTech platforms.
• Mentor and influence senior engineers, Staff engineers, and technical leads, raising engineering fundamentals across design, code quality, testing, observability, and production ownership.
• Communicate complex technical trade-offs clearly to technical and non-technical stakeholders, including senior leaders across Finance, Product, Engineering, and Technology.
• Effectively utilize AI to achieve all the above, including contributions in building the solutions you helped design.
Qualifications:
Required:
• 10+ years of experience in software engineering, architecture, or technology leadership roles, with a strong track record of designing and evolving complex production systems.
• 3+ years of hands-on experience delivering tax-related technology projects across direct or indirect tax domains, or closely related finance technology domains, including building or evolving tax platforms.
• Strong understanding of Tax technology domains such as VAT, GST, corporate tax, withholding tax, compliance workflows, tax calculation, reporting, reconciliation, and auditability.
• Proven ability to shape technical strategy and architecture roadmaps across multiple teams, systems, or business domains.
• Strong hands-on engineering background, with deep understanding of system design, APIs, data flows, integration patterns, reliability, observability, scalability, and operational trade-offs for mission-critical systems, including high-volume transactional platforms at enterprise scale.
• Ability to translate complex business, finance, and regulatory requirements into clear technical models, architecture decisions, and executable engineering plans.
• Strong communication and stakeholder management skills, with the ability to explain complex technical trade-offs to senior engineering, product, finance, and business leaders.
• Proven ability to mentor and influence senior engineers, Staff engineers, technical leads, and cross-functional teams without relying on direct reporting authority.
• Strong ownership mindset, with a track record of identifying systemic risks, reducing duplication, improving engineering quality, and driving pragmatic modernization.
Preferred:
• Experience designing or modernizing global tax platforms that support multiple jurisdictions, products, currencies, and regulatory models.
• Deep experience with tax engines or tax automation platforms such as Avalara, Vertex, OneSource, or equivalent custom-built solutions.
• Experience with ERP systems, financial ledgers, invoicing, billing, reconciliation, or other finance platform integration points.
• Familiarity with event-driven architecture, streaming, or middleware integration technologies.
• Experience with cloud-native architecture patterns, distributed systems, Kubernetes/EKS, serverless platforms, or large-scale service-oriented architectures.
• Understanding of data privacy, auditability, financial controls, and compliance frameworks such as GDPR, CCPA, SOX, or equivalent regulatory controls.
• Experience leading large-scale platform modernization, proof-of-concept work, or architecture transformation across multiple engineering teams.
• Exposure to large-scale global commerce, travel, payments, marketplace, or financial technology environments.
Company:
Agoda is a digital travel platform that provides access to hotels and holiday properties including flights. It is a sub-organization of Booking Holdings. Founded in 2005, the company is headquartered in Singapore, SGP, with a team of 5001-10000 employees. The company is currently Late Stage.