Platform Engineer - remote

Hello!

Thanks for checking out our job description for a Platform Engineer (Remote) at Impala. We felt a little bit impersonal just diving straight in with words like “revolutionising”and “disrupting”.

As such, we apologise in advance for any clichés, tropes or sudden-insecurity-driven-panic-attacks that you might find in the description below.

All that aside though, we’re pretty proud to be listed number 2 in London’s best startups to work at in 2021;number 3 in Flexa’s most Flexible Companies to work for;listed as one of the 50 fastest-growing companies in London to accelerate your career in 2021;and featured in Sifted's Top European Startups in 2021.

Here at Impala we hire anywhere +/- 2 hours of GMT.

What is Impala?

If you’re keen to be on the frontline of creating never-before-seen travel technologyandexperiences, you belong at Impala. At Impala we’re solving an exciting, complex problem that has held back the hotel industry, if not the entire travel industry, for 20 years.

Forget following emerging technology trends —we’re looking to SET them!

Impala is making the process of booking hotel rooms ridiculously easy. In short, we’re providing hotels with powerful data distribution infrastructure.

More practically, we’re making the world a better place for guests, hotels, and online travel agents of any size. Think Twilio for Travel.

We’re looking for self-motivated folks to expand our high-performance team. You’ll be a brilliant fit if you’re obsessed with self-development, Stripe-level quality &reliability, smashing targets, and moving at a red-hot pace (hello, start-up life!)

Covid-19 has forced almost every industry in the world to adjust in 2020, and none more so than the travel industry. It is however, an exciting time to be in Travel Tech, with endless opportunities opened up for innovation and forward-thinking that will help jump start the travel industry. Here at Impala, that’s our goal! Backed by some of Europe’s leading investors, we’re on the cusp of launching a product that will connect people and travel once again.

A brief overview of what you will be doing here:

As the third member of the platform team

• You’ll contribute to develop and test our growing AWS Infrastructure.
• Will work with our IT, operations, and engineering teams to ensure working practices and systems are reliable.
• You can expect to help lead teams on SRE practices, which will evolve over time for maturing products.
• You will contribute to develop our platform to reduce friction and increase deployment velocity

You should join us if you:

• Are experienced with Configuration and Secrets Management tools
• Write Infrastructure-as-code to manage cloud infrastructure
• Have experience operating and managing large scale services in any of the main Cloud providers (AWS/GCP/Azure)
• Enjoy solving operational problems using Software Engineering principles
• Can develop and operate microservices infrastructure. You understand the pros and cons of different platform choices.
• Have hands-on software development experience - you know how to write and understand code almost as well as dedicated developers.
• Experience with Terraform and operating service meshes would stand out on a CV but isn’t a necessity.
• You enjoy getting your hands dirty to provide solutions to complex problems.
• Here at Impala we aretTeam players. The engineering model at Impala isn’t built around “Rockstars that know everything”. You excel at collaboration to allow other teams to ship at their best.
• You have a passion for designing, building, operating and enhancing cloud native solutions.

You shouldn’t join us if (we want to be as honest and transparent as we can):

• You value stability in a product and company, over change and fast-growth.
• You think lofty goals are better left to renovation builders.

Where is Impala going?

We’re supported by some of the most respected investors in the business, the early-stage backers behind Deliveroo, PillPack, SecretEscapes, Zoopla, Trivago, Monzo, Travelperk, Transferwise, Airbnb, GetYourGuide, Omio, Spotify and more!

They’re on board because of the shared opportunity we have before us - revolutionising a 1.6 trillion dollar market that’s been out-of-date for 20 years.

They also share our vision of a future in which travel is seamlessly connected and relentlessly inventive.

Anyone travelling anywhere will interact with products powered by Impala. Our technology is already installed in hundreds of hotels worldwide, on six continents and categorises more than 1 billion data points.

Where will you work?

We are a remote-first company. This was a very deliberate, natural choice, as we prioritise preserving work-life balance and accommodating the best people in Europe, while also fostering diversity.

Engineers will always be, and always have been, fully-remote employees at Impala. We employ anyone within +/- 2h from GMT, timezone wise.

We have loads of remote initiatives to ensure you’re fully setup !

• We offer a monthly £150office stipend - to furnish your home office, or just to purchase things like coffee, snacks, wifi bills, cleaning, desk equipment, plants, plus anything in between.
• Alternatively you’ll have the option to expense the cost of a Co-Working Membership up to £350 per month.
• In addition, we give you a generous Personalised Workspace Budget for bigger things like monitors, keyboards, desk chairs and headphones.
• We will give you a brand new high-spec laptop when you start, giving you the choice between a Thinkpad or Mac.

What you will get in return?

• You can see our full (ultra-flexible) Benefits Package here.
• Loved One’s Budget - bring your loved ones to visit you, totally on us up to £750 per year, however near or far from home you are.
• Flexible working hours;meaning you can plan your workday around your own schedule. #flexappeal.
• Generous raise opportunities - pay reviews bi-annually, with 3.5x the average increase, using a fair, transparent and consistent formula.
• Totally Flexible benefits;meaning you can build your own adventure to create the most meaningful benefits package to you and your family and lifestyle.
• Free Food &Drinks - through our weekly Lunch-Buddies initiative.
• 1,000 Professional Development budget per year to invest in your own growth, with constant support from your manager.
• Social Events &Budget - a mixture of in-person (go-karting, mini-golf) and remote events.
• Personalised Workspace Budget - to rent out the perfect office equipment for you, in addition to the monthly WFH stipend.
• 36 Days Holiday per year - that’s in the top 14% in the UK.
• 1 Unsick Day per year - to keep on top of that healthcare admin.
• The flexibility to work anywhere in Europe, in the home office or co-working space that suits you and your preferred work environment.
• Weekly Recess Hour to step out from work and invest in some serious You Time!
• Weekly 10% Time for your own Professional Development and personal projects.
• Remote Experience Manager and the ability to get involved in our unique Pop Up Parties.
• You'll work for a company that's proactive about its social responsibility within the travel industry.
• You’ll work for a company truly passionate about D&I to the extent that we made a D&I Deck. You can help build a company that intends to support diversity and inclusion at the grassroots.
• We're Flexified, meaning we've been officially approved as a flexible workplace.

About the team

We’ve always optimised for quality over quantity when expanding our team, and we’d always rather run a team lean than simply fill seats for speed.

That means that we have Star teams full of Star players, across the board at Impala -- all of whom work to mutually elevate and support each other.

We’re a group of high-performing, fast-moving, innovation-bent and product-obsessed individuals, who don’t take ourselves too seriously.

We have people on board from a range of impressive backgrounds, from big industry players (like SkyScanner, Booking.com, Secret Escapes) to incredible startups (like Revolut, Truelayer, Paddle, Peak), plus lots more.

Sound interesting?

If your answer is ‘yes’and you want to learn more, check out our Blog and our Culture Deck.

Apply if you want to bring your innovation bent and product-obsession to help change the game in travel.

For more information about what it's like working here, check out our Glassdoor page.