Engineering Manager - Distributed Systems

About Skyscanner

Everyone loves travelling, but planning is not without its challenges ✈️ That's why we've spent 20 years building tools that turn travel-planning chaos into a breeze. Today, around 160 million travellers count on us every month to skip the whole “47 browser tabs open” phase and find flights, cars, and hotels quickly and easily 💻

Joining Skyscanner means becoming part of a global brand that's striving to become the planet's go-to travel hack accessible for all 🌍

Our vision? To be the world's number one travel ally. (Ambitious? 💪 Yes, but, hey, that's what got us here)

About the role

Hybrid

You’ll lead an experienced engineering team based in London, responsible for some of Skyscanner’s most important flight pricing systems. Think high-scale distributed backend systems that deliver fast, reliable price signals to millions of travellers around the world. Your team builds the systems that generate indicative flight prices — helping travellers explore destinations and make confident decisions without waiting on live pricing responses.

You’ll shape how the team delivers complex technical work, raise the bar on engineering excellence, and create an environment where talented engineers can do their best work. It’s a role that combines technical depth, leadership, and real product impact — the kind where good decisions ripple out to millions of travellers.

What you'll be doing

Leading Engineering Delivery: You’ll guide a strong team of engineers, ensuring high-quality, predictable delivery of systems that power core travel experiences.

Breaking Down Complex Challenges: You’ll turn big, complex initiatives into clear milestones and actionable plans that teams can execute with confidence.

Collaborating Across Regions: You will work closely with partner teams in other locations to align on architecture, delivery plans and shared system evolution.

Strengthening Distributed Systems: You’ll help shape and evolve highly scalable, resilient distributed systems that deliver fast and reliable pricing signals at global scale.

Managing Risk and Trade-offs: You’ll bring visibility to risks, dependencies and trade-offs, helping teams and stakeholders make smart, informed decisions.

Raising the Engineering Bar: You’ll champion engineering excellence — improving engineering standards, operational discipline, reliability and system health.

Creating Psychological Safety: You’ll build an environment where engineers feel safe to share ideas, challenge assumptions, and take ownership while staying accountable.

Growing People and Influence: You’ll support engineers’ professional development, helping them expand their technical expertise, collaboration and influence across the organisation.

About you

Experienced Engineering Leader: You’ve led engineering teams before and know how to balance delivery, technical direction and people development.

Distributed Systems Background: You have experience working with or leading teams that build high-scale distributed systems.

Technically Credible: You can comfortably engage in architectural discussions and help teams make sound engineering decisions.

Delivery Focused: You know how to turn complex goals into clear plans and help teams ship meaningful outcomes.

Calm in Complexity: You’re comfortable navigating ambiguity, trade-offs and dependencies in large systems and organisations.

People-First Leader: You create psychologically safe environments where engineers feel supported, challenged and motivated to grow.

Collaborative by Nature: You build strong relationships across teams and disciplines, helping everyone move towards shared goals.

What it's like here

We are the real deal— no corporate gloss, no empty promises. Just a team of genuinely curious, caring humans ❤️ building things that help travellers explore the world a little easier 🧭

Skyscanner is made up of brilliant humans from every corner of the world. We believe travel makes the world better — and that the same is true of our diverse teams. We're proud to be an equal opportunities employer and are committed to building an inclusive workplace where everyone can thrive and products that are accessible to all ✨

Sound like your kind of adventure? 🚀 Apply now and help us shape the future of travel.

We're committed to ensuring our application and recruitment processes are inclusive and accessible to everyone. If you require any reasonable adjustments or accommodations for interviews, and/or wish to apply under the Disability Confident scheme, please let your recruiter know. If you’d like more information on any of our policies, such as hybrid working or Parental Leave policies (typically we pay a minimum of 24 weeks birth parent/maternity leave globally), our recruitment team can provide more information on these.