Senior Quality Engineer

KAYAK, part of Booking Holdings (NASDAQ: BKNG), is a leading travel search engine. With billions of queries across our platforms, we help people find their perfect flight, stay, rental car and vacation package. We're also transforming business travel with a new corporate travel solution, KAYAK for Business.

As an employee of KAYAK, you will be part of a travel company that operates a portfolio of global metasearch brands including momondo, Cheapflights and HotelsCombined, among others. From start-up to industry leader, innovation is in our DNA and every employee has an opportunity to make their mark. Our focus is on building the best travel search engine to make it easier for everyone to experience the world.

KAYAK is seeking a Senior Quality Engineer to impact the quality of one of our critical business domains, KAYAK4Business (K4B)! You will ensure our products meet the highest standards for millions of travelers worldwide by developing the strategy for built-in quality across multiple areas, evaluate and influence automation coverage, and act as a key driver in specialized quality disciplines. You will partner closely with engineering, product, and design teams, and help set the standard for how quality is practiced across the organization.

Note, this role will be required to work from our Concord, MA office 3 days per week.

In this role, you will:

• Define and track quality metrics (such as defect escape rate, automated coverage, and release risk score) for critical business domains, and share progress and trends with engineering and product teams.

• Design and drive a built-in quality strategy for your domain — such as shift-left testing, contract testing between services, or synthetic monitoring — aligned with business goals.

• Own ticketing pipeline and triage newly reported customer-facing issues, identify trends, and escalate critical issues to the relevant engineering teams as needed.

• Evaluate, pilot, and drive adoption of AI-assisted quality tools for use cases like test case generation, defect triage, and log analysis.

• Audit and expand automated test coverage across unit, integration, API, and end-to-end tiers — identifying gaps and prioritizing investments based on risk and usage data.

• Refine and automate production testing practices (e.g., canary releases, synthetic transactions, production error-rate dashboards) to catch escaped bugs quickly and drive fixes that prevent recurrence.

• Lead user acceptance and staging sign-off on major releases, coordinating directly with product and engineering teams to confirm readiness before launch.

• Run knowledge-sharing sessions, pairing, and test-plan reviews to raise the quality bar across engineering teams.

• Contribute to the team's evolving approach to asynchronous quality practices — helping move quality from a release gate to an ongoing, embedded discipline.

• Collaborate with external partners to represent K4B in the innovation and expansion of the application.

Please apply if you have:

• 5+ years of experience understanding of quality metrics, their trade-offs, and how to combine them into a holistic view of product quality.

• Solid knowledge of CI/CD, version control, APIs, and how large-scale web applications work.

• Experience applying AI tools responsibly to test planning, issue triage, automation, or other quality workflows — equivalent experience with emerging tooling is equally welcome.

• A demonstrated ability to lead quality-focused projects and initiatives that span multiple teams or a broader engineering organization.

• Clear and effective communication skills, both in writing and in conversation, with a proactive approach to collaboration and a sense of ownership for team outcomes.

• Hands-on experience with modern issue tracking software (e.g., Atlassian), and logging or observability platforms.

• A background in computer science or a related technical field — whether through a degree, a bootcamp, self-directed study, or equivalent hands-on experience; all pathways are considered.

• Familiarity with release and off-cycle management processes is a plus, particularly if you are interested in participating in release rotation.

The following will help you stand out:

• Quality leadership experience serving as a key driver in a specialized quality area such as vendor management, crowd testing, accessibility (full WCAG list), or API testing.

• Technical travel experience with a background in GDS (Global Distribution Systems)

• Experience working with offshore or globally distributed teams.

• Mobile app testing experience.

• Efficient ways to use AI in quality practices.

• ISTQB certification or equivalent.

Benefits and Perks

• Work from (almost) anywhere for up to 20 days per year

• Focus on mental health and well-being:

  • Company-paid therapy sessions through SpringHealth

  • Company-paid subscription to HeadSpace

  • Company-wide week off a year – the whole team fully recharges (and returns without a pile-up of work!)

  • No meeting Fridays

  • Paid parental leave

  • Generous paid vacation + time off for your birthday

  • Paid volunteer time

• Focus on your career growth:

  • Development Dollars

  • Leadership development

  • Access to thousands of on-demand e-learnings

  • Travel Discounts

  • Employee Resource Groups

• Competitive retirement and health plans

• Free lunch 2 days per week

• Fun quarterly events such as boat trips, arcades, ski trips, Thursday happy hours, and more

There are a variety of factors that go into determining a salary range, including but not limited to external market benchmark data, geographic location, and years of experience sought/required. The range for this Massachusetts based role is $130,000 - 145,000.00.

We offer a competitive base salary and benefits including: health benefits; flexible spending account; retirement benefits; life insurance; paid time off (including PTO, paid sick leave, medical leave, bereavement leave, floating holidays and paid holidays); and parental leave benefits. This role is eligible to be considered for an annual bonus.

Inclusion

At KAYAK, we want everyone to have the space to grow, share ideas and do great work. That's why we're focused on hiring the best talent from all walks of life and experiences, supporting them well and making sure no one feels like they have to fit a mold to belong here.

Need any adjustments for the interview, application or on the job? No problem - just give us a heads-up. We've got you.

#LI-EI1