Manager, Data Platform

This role is required to work from our Berlin office 3 days per week.

In this role, you will:

• Own the roadmap for KAYAK’s shared data platform.
• Lead and develop a high-performing Berlin-based team of data platform engineers.
• Evolve the platform architecture across ingestion, storage, orchestration, runtime, and lakehouse foundations.
• Build core capabilities such as schema registry, data contracts, observability, metadata, and semantic layer implementation.
• Enforce data retention policies and platform controls for different data types and usage needs.
• Improve platform reliability by building the tooling and platform capabilities needed for monitoring, alerting, incident response, and operational readiness.
• Drive platform modernization and simplify legacy systems where it creates clear value.
• Define clear ownership boundaries so the platform team owns shared infrastructure and raw data quality, while downstream teams own business logic.

Please apply if:

• You have 8+ years of experience in data engineering, platform engineering, data architecture, or a related role.
• You have meaningful people-management experience and a high technical bar.
• You have strong knowledge of large-scale data platform architecture, including streaming, batch, storage, orchestration, and distributed query engines.
• You have hands-on experience with technologies relevant to KAYAK’s stack, such as Kafka, Flink, Iceberg, Trino, AWS, Kubernetes, Airflow, Python, SQL, and schema-based data contracts.
• You have led platforms with high-throughput event streams and large-scale analytical data.
• You have led platform migrations or infrastructure modernization efforts with strong judgment on risk, reliability, cost, and business continuity.
• You are comfortable working across Engineering, Data Science, Data Engineering, Operations, Security, and Product on technically complex topics.
• You bring high ownership, sound judgment, systems thinking, and the ability to influence senior stakeholders.

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
• 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
• 6 weeks paid vacation + a day off for your birthday
• Free lunch 2 days per week
• Pension plan contributions
• Public transportation subsidies
• Bike leasing program
• Monthly social events, Thursday happy hours, sports teams
• An awesome office in Friedrichshain, Berlin

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.

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Source: Statistisches Bundesamt (Destatis), table; dl-de/by-2-0; StarIn's calculation

Posted Nov 01, 2026

Posted Nov 01, 2026