Software Engineer II

Job Location: Athens, GR

Job Type:Full Time, Fixed Term (c 9-12 months)

Job Purpose:This is a hands-on product engineering role on our backend team, focused on our Transformation project — the work that equips our Operations team to deliver the best possible experience to our users. You'll own initiatives (epics) from end to end, taking them from concept through to production. We work in short feedback cycles, getting changes in front of the people who use them quickly and iterating from there. And we expect you to continuously improve both the pace and quality of delivery through smart adoption of AI tooling.

Reports To: Head of Engineering (based in London)

Direct Reports: n/a

Working Partnerships: Product, Design, Quality Engineering

What we do

The Thinking Traveller manages an exclusive collection of luxury villas around the Mediterranean. Our knowledgeable sales team personally chats with our clients to matchmake them with the perfect villa. The Engineering team built all the tools that we need to make this as seamless as possible. We're backed by Piper Private Equity (Monica Vinader, Bloom & Wild, Yard Sale Pizza, Neom).

Technology at The Thinking Traveller

Our stack uses Ruby on Rails with PostgreSQL hosted on AWS, and Next.js hosted on Vercel. We develop on a trunk-based repo with CI/CD and deploy multiple times per day. The existing team is made up of six product engineers, supported by a Product function responsible for product definition and design. We use Claude Code across the full development cycle — from planning through to delivery — to work faster, automate the repetitive, and keep our focus on solving real problems for the business.

Job Accountabilities

• Own features end to end — from planning and technical design through building, testing, and release to production
• Build and maintain the Ruby on Rails systems that power our client journey and business workflows
• Contribute to frontend development across the stack — this is a backend-heavy full-stack role, so you'll spend most of your time in Rails but should be comfortable picking up frontend work when a feature calls for it
• Write high-quality, well-tested code and deliver features within agreed timelines
• Leverage AI coding agents to maximise your efficiency and output, raising the bar for how quickly and reliably we ship
• Participate in code reviews to ensure output aligns with the company's coding standards and principles
• Proactively take part in retrospectives and champion developer-experience improvements, taking the initiative to raise the team's overall performance
• Maintain existing systems, build in observability, and help find and resolve bottlenecks
• Collaborate with stakeholders to understand their needs and our clients' needs, working in a continuous feedback loop
• Respond quickly to bug reports and production issues, with a mindset of keeping the business running smoothly and supporting our Operations and Sales teams when they need it

Person Specification

• A passion for software engineering for the Web
• Proficient in Ruby on Rails, with a track record of shipping production code
• Strong data structure design — you can model a domain well and design robust, maintainable database schemas that hold up as requirements evolve
• Able to make pragmatic trade-offs between speed, quality, and scope
• Experience with RESTful API design and development
• Comfortable working with PostgreSQL and AWS infrastructure and services
• Demonstrable experience leveraging AI coding agents to work more efficiently – or genuine enthusiasm to adopt and master them quickly
• A strong team player who proactively looks for ways to contribute to the team's success rather than waiting to be asked
• Exceptional communication and collaboration skills, comfortable working with non-technical colleagues
• Able to work around obstacles to deliver outcomes, managing expectations around deadlines
• You enjoy getting your work in front of the people who will use it and are happy to listen to and implement feedback
• Fluent in Greek and English

Note: No React or Next.js experience is required for this role, but you should be happy to learn and work across the frontend stack where needed.

Nice to have

• Experience in e-commerce or travel platforms
• An appreciation of good UX and design
• You love travel!