Senior Software Engineer, Backend

**ResortPass** Senior Software Engineer, Backend; $190,000–$225,000 plus equity; New York (On-site)

**About Company** ResortPass is redefining what it means to be a hotel guest by unlocking premium hotels (Ritz-Carlton, Hilton, Marriott, Hyatt, Four Seasons, Fairmont, IHG) and resorts for day access — pools, beaches, spas, wellness — without an overnight stay. Category leader with real scale: 5M+ customers served, 250K monthly users, 800K app installs last year, 2,500+ hotel partners, and hundreds of millions generated for partners. Approaching profitability with a lean team — outsized ownership for engineers joining now. Backed by CRV, Declaration, Brian Kelly (The Points Guy), WME, FJ Labs, and more.

**About the Role** We’re hiring a Senior Backend Engineer to build ResortPass’s external booking API from scratch — a greenfield platform that distribution partners (OTAs, travel aggregators, AI travel agents) will use to search, book, and manage inventory. This is the company’s new distribution layer, purpose-built for correctness, concurrency, and partner-grade reliability across the entire booking lifecycle. ResortPass is a marketplace, and supply is half the battle — this role also owns modeling the harder edges of that supply, including variable-duration inventory like spa and treatment time slots, a problem the team considers one of its toughest to get right. The backend stack is Ruby on Rails, Postgres, AWS, with Redis, Kafka, and OpenSearch. Priority #1 hire for the engineering team, and the team moves fast for the right candidate (one recent hire completed the full interview process in a week).

**Responsibilities** - Design and build the external booking API for distribution partners (availability, pricing, reservation, modification, cancellation). - Own correctness-critical transaction flows — ensure booking, payment, and inventory operations are atomic, idempotent, and resilient under concurrent load. - Define API contracts (versioning, authentication, rate limiting, error handling) for external partner consumption. - Model variable-duration and constrained-capacity inventory (e.g. spa and treatment scheduling) as part of the core supply data layer. - Partner with product and business teams on partner integration requirements and launch timelines. - Instrument services for observability (Datadog): latency, error rates, throughput, and business-critical alerts. - Contribute to platform reliability (Redis caching, Kafka event streaming, OpenSearch indexing) across the booking domain.

**Required Skills** A. 6+ years building production backend systems at scale. B. Strong CS fundamentals, ideally from a strong degree program. C. Deep experience with correctness-critical transactional systems (payments, booking, inventory, or similar domains where data integrity is non-negotiable). D. Strong API design skills — has built and maintained external-facing APIs consumed by third-party partners or customers. E. Solid understanding of concurrency, consistency, and failure handling in distributed systems. F. High engineering bar: testing discipline, observability mindset, maintainable code.

**Bonus Skills** - Backend: Ruby on Rails, Node.js - Data: Postgres, Redis, Kafka, OpenSearch - Infra/Obs: AWS, Datadog - Experience with marketplace/booking systems or partner integrations

**Logistical Info** - Location: New York (120 Fifth Avenue, Floor 7, NY 10011, Union Square/Flatiron), in-person 4 days/week Mon–Thu, 9:30 AM–5:30 PM - Compensation: $190,000–$225,000 base plus equity - **Other:** Visa not standard (possible exception for exceptional candidates); relocation not available; health, dental, and vision coverage (ResortPass contributes to premiums); stock options; 401(k); unlimited PTO; paid parental leave; annual ResortPass credit for pools, beaches, spas, and experiences.

**Ideal Background** Keep this simple, per the hiring manager’s own framing — this is not an 85-bullet-point wishlist: - **Company pedigree (priority #1):** Big tech (Google, Meta, Snap, Bloomberg, Capital One) is the strong preference — most recent hires including the hiring manager came from big tech. Well-known startups (Uber, Airbnb, DoorDash) also acceptable. - **CS degree from a strong school (priority #2, near-gate):** Candidates without one can still get a yes but need real convincing. Don’t spend this convincing budget on a weak pedigree candidate too. - **Mindset fit:** Must be genuinely open to a startup environment after a big-tech background, not just tolerating it. The team explicitly screens for this and has had strong success with candidates making that transition. - Rails experience not required — engineering quality matters most. Open to strong backend engineers from any language background (Go, Python, Java, etc.) who learn Rails on the job. **Candidates may code in the language of their choice during live coding rounds.** - Experience with booking/marketplace/payments systems a strong plus. - Calibration: a recently hired ex-Microsoft engineer (see Example Candidates) is the bar. His engineering writeup (resortpass.com/engineering/articles/retrofitting-language-into-our-stack), published shortly after joining, is a strong proxy for the technical maturity and ownership this team expects. - Comp note: $225K is the ceiling — do not submit candidates expecting above that. Equity: $35K baseline in shares, negotiable upward for candidates from Meta/Snap/Bloomberg/Capital One-caliber backgrounds. No performance-based bonus. Clear internal promotion path into team lead/EM roles.

**Example Candidates** - [linkedin.com/in/reddyvis](https://www.linkedin.com/in/reddyvis)

**Green Flags** - Thrived at high-bar org, hungry for more ownership at smaller scale. - Eagerness and drive for fast-paced startup environment. - Can clearly articulate recent hands-on coding work (not just managing/reviewing). - Has built systems where correctness matters: payments, financial, booking, inventory. - Strong product sense — thinks about partner experience, API usability, business impact.

**Red Flags** - Cannot pass live coding round (#1 drop-off — not esoteric, just translating requirements to a working function). - Slow-moving or doesn’t thrive in startup pace. - Slower-moving enterprise background OK only with clear startup drive. - No experience with transactional/correctness-critical systems. - Contractors at staffing firms placed at big companies: instant no, company-wide rule, don’t submit.

**Interview Process** 1. Recruiter Screen 2. Virtual DS coding 45 mins 3. Virtual live coding with AI tools (candidates may use Copilot, ChatGPT, etc.) 1 hour 4. Onsite Code review 30 mins 5. Onsite System design 1 hour 6. Onsite Hiring Manager screen 30 mins 7. Onsite Meet VP of Tech 30 mins