American Express

Staff Software Engineer - SaaS integrations,API Designs - Travel & Lifestyle Services

American Express$150K — $180K *
Technical Services
8 - 10 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • 10+ years designing, building, and operating large-scale distributed systems.
  • Proven ownership of mission-critical third-party or SaaS integrations.
  • Expertise in API design and integration patterns, including versioning.
  • Strong understanding of distributed systems fundamentals like fault tolerance.
  • Experience with resilience design practices including retries and circuit breakers.
  • Knowledge in contract testing and schema governance for external integrations.
  • Background in data engineering, focusing on data quality and lineage.

Responsibilities

  • Serve as the single technical owner of critical third-party travel platforms.
  • Define integration architecture and maintain reliability and scalability standards.
  • Act as the primary technical contact for vendor engineering leadership.
  • Push vendors on aspects of API design, performance, and security.
  • Influence vendor product roadmaps and technical decisions on integration.
  • Establish API contract governance processes to safeguard against breaking changes.
  • Drive practices for resilience and durable remediation of integration issues.

Benefits

  • Professional development opportunities with a focus on technology innovation.
  • Collaborative work environment with cross-team engagement.
  • Access to cutting-edge tools and technologies for project implementation.
  • Participation in shaping strategic integration initiatives within the company.
  • Mentorship opportunities to influence and develop fellow engineers.
Full Job Description
Job Description

We are seeking a Staff Software Engineer to provide technical ownership and leadership for these critical third-party travel platforms.

About the Role

This role owns the technical health and evolution of Amex's most important external travel integrations. Sitting at the intersection of architecture, vendor engineering, and internal platform development, you will define integration strategy, reduce systemic risk, and drive technical leverage across teams and partners.
This role is not focused on day-to-day incident response or feature delivery. It is focused on architecture, standards, influence, and long-term outcomes.

Responsibilities

  • Act as the single technical owner for all critical third-party travel platforms, including booking, inventory, and fulfillment providers.
  • Define and maintain integration architecture, standards, and patterns that support reliability, scalability, observability, and vendor isolation.
  • Serve as the primary technical counterpart to vendor engineering leadership, including directors and CTOs.
  • Push vendors on API design, performance, reliability, security posture, network architecture, and operational readiness.
  • Influence vendor product roadmaps and provide technical input into vendor selection, renewal, and replacement decisions.
  • Establish API contract governance, versioning standards, and automated contract testing to prevent breaking changes.
  • Partner with SRE to address systemic integration risks and ensure durable remediation of recurring issues without owning day-to-day support.
  • Drive resilience practices including graceful degradation, dependency isolation, and multi-vendor fallback strategies.
  • Define data quality, consistency, and lineage expectations for third-party data flows in partnership with Data and Product teams.
  • Support contract negotiations with clear technical acceptance criteria, SLAs, and non-functional requirements.
  • Collaborate with enterprise architecture and internal platform staff engineers to align with portfolio and enterprise strategy.
  • Mentor engineers across teams on integration design, distributed systems tradeoffs, and vendor constraints.
  • Work closely with product and business architecture to surface technical risks early and shape roadmap decisions.
  • Hands-on development of proof of concepts (POCs) and rapid prototypes to validate new technologies, AI capabilities, and customer experience innovations, including collaboration with third-party partners and vendors where applicable


Qualifications

  • 10+ years of experience designing, building, and operating large-scale, distributed systems in production.
  • Demonstrated ownership of mission-critical third-party or SaaS integrations, including architecture, reliability, and lifecycle management.
  • Deep expertise in API design and integration patterns, including synchronous and asynchronous workflows, versioning, and backward compatibility.
  • Strong understanding of distributed systems fundamentals, including fault tolerance, latency tradeoffs, consistency models, and failure isolation.
  • Hands-on experience designing for resilience and high availability, including retries, circuit breakers, graceful degradation, and multi-vendor strategies.
  • Experience implementing contract testing, schema governance, and pre-production validation for external integrations.
  • Strong data engineering fundamentals, including data modeling, reconciliation, data quality controls, and lineage across system boundaries.
  • Experience partnering with SRE and platform teams to improve observability and operational maturity.
  • Solid understanding of integration security architecture, including authentication, authorization, secure networking, and sensitive data protection.
  • Proven ability to translate technical risk into business impact and influence decisions across engineering, product, and external partners.
    Preferred Experience
  • Experience in travel, payments, commerce, or other real-time transactional domains.
  • Prior responsibility for vendor technical relationships, including roadmap influence and participation in renewal or replacement decisions.
  • Experience defining and enforcing integration standards across multiple teams or platforms.
  • Strong cloud-native architecture experience (AWS or equivalent), including networking and observability tooling.
  • Experience evaluating vendors, leading build vs buy decisions, or executing platform migrations.
  • Familiarity with modern API gateways, event-driven architectures, and service-to-service communication patterns.
  • Experience supporting analytics or AI use cases that depend on third-party data, with an emphasis on traceability and compliance.
    Core Competencies
  • Distributed systems and integration architecture
  • API design and lifecycle management
  • Reliability engineering and failure analysis
  • Technical leadership and influence without authority
  • Cross-team and cross-company collaboration
  • Strategic thinking with a focus on long-term technical leverage


Depending on factors such as business unit requirements, the nature of the position, cost and applicable laws, American Express may provide visa sponsorship for certain positions.

About American Express

Amex provides industrial services to the coatings and linings sector, providing support for commercial, industrial, and maritime projects such as petrochemical, power, and water treatment industries. They offer painting services for steel structures, storage tank linings and coatings, pipelines, floors, and marine vessels such as ships, tugboats, and barges.

American Express Careers

Join the vibrant team at American Express, a global leader in financial services, and be part of a company that values innovation, leadership, and diversity. At American Express, we offer more than just job opportunities; we provide a platform for professional growth and a chance to be part of a culture that is committed to excellence and inclusive growth. Work You’ll Do At American Express, we are dedicated to helping our employees reach their full potential. With a variety of career paths available in areas such as technology, marketing, finance, and customer service, American Express is the perfect place to advance your career. Our team is composed of highly skilled professionals who thrive on innovation and collaboration. Join our team and contribute to a company known for its prestigious history of leadership in the credit card industry. Engage in meaningful work that makes a real impact on our global scale business operations. American Express Leadership and Development Programs We believe in nurturing the leadership skills of our employees with extensive training programs and leadership development opportunities. Our commitment to professional growth is evident in our comprehensive benefits package that supports both personal and professional development. Internship Opportunities Start your career with an internship at American Express and gain valuable industry experience. Our internships offer a chance to develop skills, work on challenging projects, and learn from leaders in the industry. Interns at American Express are considered integral members of the team and are given responsibilities that provide a real insight into their future career paths. Diversity and Inclusion At American Express, diversity and inclusion are at the core of our company culture. We are committed to building a diverse workforce and inclusive environment where every employee feels valued and inspired. We offer diversity training programs that empower our employees to thrive and lead in a global marketplace. Networking and Innovation Our employees enjoy unparalleled opportunities for networking and personal growth through our global connections and innovative projects. American Express encourages a culture of innovation that helps propel our company and your career forward. Career Benefits and Growth American Express is dedicated to the growth of its employees. We offer competitive benefits, including health, retirement plans, and family leave, ensuring that our team members have the support they need to succeed both at work and in their personal lives. Join Our Team Explore the job opportunities and open positions at American Express. We are continuously hiring talented individuals who are passionate about their careers and interested in working for a company that offers a dynamic and supportive environment. Stay Connected Keep up to date with the latest from American Express Careers by following our career blog and signing up for job alert emails. Tailor your subscription to receive updates that match your skills and interests. Discover the exciting and rewarding career opportunities that await at American Express. SEARCH AMERICAN EXPRESS JOBS Whether you are looking for a full-time position, an internship, or a leadership opportunity, American Express offers a path to a rewarding career. Join us and make a difference with your passion, creativity, and drive.
Learn more about American Express
Size
64,000 employees
Market Cap
$108.1 billion
Industry
Net Income
$3.1 billion
Founded
1850
5 Year Trend
+3.5%
Revenue
$37 billion
NASDAQ

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