Director BigData and Governance Platforms

Role Description

About Booking.com

Established in 1996 in Amsterdam, Booking.com has grown from a small Dutch start-up to one of the largest ecommerce companies in the world. Booking.com is the largest business within Booking Holdings (NASDAQ: BKNG) and accounts for the vast majority of Booking Holdings’ total revenue. Booking Holdings is a leading Fortune 500 e-commerce conglomerate with a market cap of roughly $166 Billion (2025). Booking.com currently employs approximately 12,000 employees in 140 offices in 70 countries worldwide.

With a mission to make it easier for everyone to experience the world, Booking.com invests in digital technology that helps take the friction out of travel. Booking.com connects travelers with the world’s largest selection of incredible places to stay, including everything from apartments, vacation homes, and family-run B&Bs to 5-star luxury resorts and even tree houses. The Booking.com website and mobile apps are available in over 44 languages, offer more than 28M total reported listings, and cover over 174,000 destinations in 229 countries worldwide. Offering 30 different types of places to stay, including homes, apartments, B&Bs, hostels, farm stays, bungalows, even boats, igloos, and treehouses. So whether travelling for business or leisure, customers can instantly book their ideal accommodation quickly and easily, without booking fees and backed up by its promise to price match. Via the customer experience team, customers can reach Booking.com 24/7 for assistance and support in over 44 languages, any time of the day or night. 

At Booking.com, we are all involved in making hundreds of decisions every day. The decisions we make are a reflection of our Values - they reflect what is important to us, both as individuals and as an organisation. 

When Values are made explicit, they provide clarity on what “good” looks like. And when they are shared, they build unity in a group. They build culture.

• Think customer first. We obsess about adding value for our customers - guests, partners, colleagues - to make it easier for everyone to experience the world.

• Own it. We deliver on our promises, make informed decisions and prioritize to get the important things done today.

• Learn forever. We are resilient, take time to reflect, and seek to learn – from colleagues, from the outside world and from our failures.

• Succeed together. We celebrate team success, through making connections, building trust and valuing the diverse perspectives of others.

• Do the right thing. We get the right results the right way. For each other, our communities and the world around us.

About the position of Director Bigdata and Governance Platforms 

Booking.com’s Data & Machine Learning Department are building the foundations that allow the company to turn data into better customer experiences, stronger business decisions and responsible innovation at scale. The organisation provides the platforms through which data is produced, ingested, stored, discovered, governed, accessed and consumed across Booking.com, supporting data engineering, analytics, machine learning, AI and operational use cases. This role sits at the centre of that ambition, bringing together deep engineering leadership for BigData platforms and Data & AI Governance Platforms.

As Director of Big Data and Governance Platforms, you will define and lead the technology strategy for a portfolio of foundational platforms used across the company. These capabilities span the production and consumption of governed data, cloud data infrastructure, data management, lineage and discovery, identity and access management, data quality and observability, privacy controls, data usage policy enforcement and the services that make these capabilities reliable and easy to use. Your mandate is not simply to operate a collection of technical systems; it is to create a coherent platform ecosystem that enables teams to move quickly while keeping data secure, trusted, compliant and accountable.

A defining part of the role is connecting engineering execution with the needs of the wider organisation. You will partner closely with the VP Data & Machine Learning, the Data and AI Governance leadership, Product, Data Science, Data Engineering, Security, Privacy, Legal, Risk and Control, Central Technology and Business Unit teams. Together, you will translate strategic and regulatory needs into durable platform capabilities and clear decision rights. You will create alignment across a federated organisation, balancing enterprise-wide standards with the autonomy required by teams working close to their domains and customers.

The platforms serve a broad internal customer base: engineers and data practitioners who need dependable, high-performing and intuitive tooling, as well as governance, legal, privacy, security and compliance stakeholders who need clear evidence, traceability and effective control. Success will therefore require more than technical excellence. It will require empathy for users, strong product thinking, commercial judgement and the ability to make governance practical—so that doing the right thing becomes the easiest way for teams to build and use data.

You will be responsible for setting the direction, building the organisation and creating the conditions for sustained delivery. This includes developing senior engineering managers, attracting and retaining exceptional technical talent, establishing an effective operating model, and ensuring that roadmaps, budgets and capacity are aligned to Booking.com’s strategic priorities. You will foster a culture in which teams own outcomes end to end, apply strong engineering craftsmanship, operate what they build and continuously improve the reliability, usability, performance and business impact of the platforms they provide.

This is an opportunity to shape one of Booking.com’s important enterprise capabilities. By combining BigData engineering depth with modern governance, automation and platform thinking, you will help Booking.com scale the use of data and AI with confidence—unlocking innovation while protecting customers, partners and the company.

Key responsibilities

• Set the technology strategy for foundational Big Data and governance platforms, including cloud data infrastructure, data management, lineage, discovery, IAM, data quality, observability, privacy controls and policy enforcement.  

• Build a coherent platform ecosystem that enables fast delivery while keeping data secure, trusted, compliant and accountable.  

• Translate strategic and regulatory requirements into durable platform capabilities, operating principles and clear decision rights.  

• Align a federated organisation, balancing enterprise-wide standards with domain-team autonomy.  

• Partner across the company with Data & ML, Product, Engineering, Security, Privacy, Legal, Risk, Central Technology and business teams.  

• Lead the organisation and delivery model: develop senior engineering leaders, attract talent, align roadmaps, budgets and capacity, and create conditions for sustained execution.  

• Drive operational excellence, ensuring teams own outcomes end to end and continuously improve reliability, usability, performance and business impact.  

Key skills and experience

• Deep expertise in Big Data platforms, cloud data infrastructure and data engineering.

• Strong knowledge of Data & AI Governance, including metadata, lineage, discovery, data quality, observability, access management, privacy and policy enforcement.  

• Enterprise architecture and platform-product thinking—turning complex capabilities into reliable, intuitive and reusable services.

• Proven ability to lead large, senior and multidisciplinary teams in a global, federated or matrixed environment.

• Strong strategic leadership and execution: roadmapping, prioritisation, budgeting, operating-model design and organisational development.  

• Excellent stakeholder influence and communication, especially translating technical, regulatory and risk topics into practical decisions.

• User empathy, commercial judgement and pragmatism, making governance easy to adopt rather than a barrier to delivery.  

• Building strong engineering culture: reliability, security, compliance, accountability and operational ownership.

If your application is successful, your personal data may be used for a pre-employment screening check by a third party as permitted by applicable law. Depending on the vacancy and applicable law, a pre-employment screening may include employment history, education and other information (such as media information) that may be necessary for determining your qualifications and suitability for the position.