How to make an impact in Barcelona with the TravelPerk engineering team
We’ve created the next-generation business travel tool that’s helping thousands of companies to travel around the world.
You might be surprised to not see videogames or ping-pong tables in our office like in so many other tech companies. This is because we think of TravelPerk as a company of grown-ups. This means that we’re having more fun working together to diagnose and solve real problems than playing games.
We don’t have time to get distracted. We’re solving issues that the majority of companies struggle with. Being a startup, we have to stay focused and nimble. We have to be better than competitors.
If you’d like to know what it actually takes to be a part of the engineering team behind Europe’s fastest-growing SaaS startup and to understand the mindset and the culture of the incredible team that has carried our product this far over the last four years, then keep on reading.
If you are bored of easy problems come and stay challenged with us.
Why “boring” can be sexy
AI. AI. AI. AI. Chatbots.
So sexy, right?
Not really. What’s sexy is building something that customers actually need with the technologies required.
“ One of the things I like the most about TravelPerk is that it was created to address a real pain. We’re not here to convince people to get something they don’t need.” Giorgio Polvara (Senior Frontend Developer)
We’re modernizing business travel and making travelers happy, one trip at a time. This would not be possible if we were focused on using the sexiest, newest technologies instead of solving the real problems at hand.
Imagine a super smooth AI-driven chatbot that could help you find the best flight to Singapore but couldn’t book the flight for you. That would be pointless. Utter nonsense. And yet, there are tools like this out there.
Our team cares enough to fix the real problems with business travel. That’s why over the last 3 years, we’ve built an OTA (Online Travel Agency) for business travel that lets travelers book for themselves within company policy and get trip support on-the-go. It’s now the world’s largest bookable inventory with more flights and hotels than any other platform.
It’s easy to get distracted.
If our team was chasing sexy, cool stuff, we wouldn’t be at the forefront of the race to consumerize business travel. But we are, and it’s because of the people behind the product. And now these same people get to tackle some sexy cherry-on-top features while keeping the foundation of the product strong.
We don’t need stack experts, we want smart people.
We’re not set on one technology or process. As an example, we run everything in AWS using Docker because these are the best tools for our DevOps needs, not because we’re convinced that Docker is cooler than Kubernetes.
So, we’re not looking for stack experts. We’re looking for smart people who can bring in the best tools and processes to get the job done fast.
““We’re a group of people who are passionate about tech, travel, and startups. We’re a young team, with people from more than 15 countries, and we’re based in Barcelona. Although we’re young, we’re not new to this — we’ve been around for a while.” Sergio Berná (CTO)
Get out of your comfort zone at the TravelPerk “University”
We have something we like to call the TravelPerk University. It’s not formal. There are some workshops, but this is not only about classes. This is the name that we give to our commitment to lifelong learning.
We push our people to always learn more.
If you’re a backend developer, I want you to learn frontend. If you’re a full-stack developer, I want you to learn DevOps. If you know all these things, I want you to learn project management.
We invest in people because it’s the right thing to do for their growth. But also, selfishly, it’s best for the company. By understanding the problem as a whole, you are going to make better decisions and be a better engineer.
We want to pay people not just with their salary, but with greater experience and knowledge. We do this by pushing people out of their comfort zone. When their comfort zone expands, we push them again. If we see something’s not a fit, we’ll push in a different direction.
Why do we care more about facts than opinions?
An opinion is an expression of a person’s feelings that cannot be proven. At TravelPerk, we care about real facts based on real events. Let’s say you are a junior, senior, or even CEO of the company and you have an opinion or idea or a thought about what would or wouldn’t work for our customers. We ask you to go and form an experiment and come back to us with data and learnings, and BOOM! You have a fact — not an opinion — and we love them!
Impact is better than effort (so please count outcomes, not hours)
We believe in impact over effort. If you are really motivated and make a massive impact, it’s fine with us if you go home early. Again, unlike many other startups, we do not want our people to “live” in the office. We want to be productive at work, and simply enjoy life and do our own things later.
It goes back to why we don’t have a ping pong table. We don’t want our team spending time playing ping pong or watching silly videos on Facebook. We’d rather that they focus, make an impact and hang out together, or simply go home. Or spend time exploring Barcelona, which is an amazing place to live.
Picture yourself with us in Barcelona
Impact is what our engineers love most about working here. They love that they can make a direct impact on the product on a daily basis, because our development cycle is incredibly fast.
What also keeps our team happy is being in a relatively new sector. Corporate travel might be an old business, but the job of bringing it to the internet is still new.
Our team is made up of A players. Our senior executives have sold previous startups (but aren’t selling this one, because it stands alone) and the whole team is selected from the best pool of international talent. When hiring, we look for what we call “top tunas,” people who are the best of the best.
We’re tackling a huge opportunity: rewiring business travel. We have a great team of people who care and are backed by the world’s top investors. If you identify with this, and think that you can contribute to our success — we should talk!
TravelPerk is hiring new engineers to join the mission, make an impact, and enjoy sunny Barcelona. Apply to join us here. Let’s get amazing things done!
