E

Engine

Business travel booking and spend management.

Principal Architect

Full-TimeUpdated on 10/23/2026
$250k - $285k+ Equity + Annual bonus (role-dependent)
Expert
Remote in USA
Remote
Software Engineering

About the job

Requirements
  • At least 12 years of experience designing and evolving high-scale distributed systems.
  • Experience driving major technical initiatives across multiple teams and influencing engineering direction at an organizational level.
  • Expertise designing modular, loosely coupled systems and breaking monolithic applications into well-structured services.
  • Ability to guide teams through complex technical challenges and make high-impact decisions in ambiguous environments.
  • Mastery of cloud environments and services, including best practices for building reliable, scalable systems; AWS is preferred.
  • Experience designing APIs and defining clear service boundaries to ensure interoperability and maintainability.
  • Deep understanding of distributed system patterns, including event-driven architectures, data consistency models, and service communication strategies such as REST, gRPC, and messaging.
  • A pragmatic approach to problem-solving, including knowing when to apply best practices and when to adapt to practical constraints.
  • Experience influencing engineering teams and leadership without direct authority.
Responsibilities
  • Define and champion architectural best practices, helping teams design modular, maintainable services aligned with long-term business needs.
  • Lead the transition from monolithic applications to distributed systems, ensuring scalability, resilience, and long-term maintainability.
  • Shape the technical roadmap with engineering leaders and drive key decisions around service design, data flow, and system interactions.
  • Collaborate with engineers to solve complex technical problems and ensure high-quality implementations.
  • Mentor and influence engineers, fostering strong engineering fundamentals, service ownership, and thoughtful system design.
  • Collaborate across teams to ensure the architecture supports business needs without unnecessary complexity.
Desired Qualifications
  • Experience with AWS cloud environments and services.

About the company

E

Engine

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Website

Engine is a travel and spend management platform for businesses to book and manage work trips across hotels, flights, and rental cars from one place. It offers discounted hotel rates, flexible changes and cancellations, group room blocks, direct bill invoicing, spend reporting, rewards, and 24/7 support with no membership fees. The platform differentiates itself with a single interface for hotels, airlines, and car rentals, a free Partner Hub for hotels to manage offers, and a move into APIs (Omni) to embed hotel bookings, plus acquisitions to build AI-powered booking tools. Its goal is to simplify corporate travel and help companies control costs by streamlining travel across hotels, flights, and car rentals.

Company Size

201-500

Company Stage

Series C

Total Funding

$221M

Headquarters

Denver, Colorado

Founded

2013

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Simplify's Take

What believers are saying

  • Engine announced the Navan partnership on September 8, 2026, expanding extended-stay and group bookings.
  • Engine acquired Options Travel on July 31, 2026, adding employees and client relationships immediately.
  • Salesforce said Engine’s Eva cut support handle time 15% and resolved 50% autonomously in 2026.

What critics are saying

  • Navan, SAP Concur, and Trimble control distribution; losing any partner cuts Engine’s pipeline quickly.
  • Engine’s AI automations depend on complex integrations; rollout failures damage trust and delay enterprise adoption.
  • A dominant platform like Navan can internalize Engine’s infrastructure, turning Engine into replaceable plumbing.

What makes Engine unique

  • Engine powers Navan’s 2026 booking stack, embedding infrastructure inside a larger travel platform.
  • Options Travel acquisition gives Engine a legacy TMC base and accelerates its AI-native OBT.
  • Engine’s SAP Concur, Trimble, and Salesforce integrations create sticky distribution across booking and support.

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Benefits

  • 401(k) Company Match
  • Company Equity
  • Hybrid Work Options
  • Performance Bonus

Growth & Insights and Company News

6 month growth

0%

1 year growth

-1%

2 year growth

-14%
TechCrunch
Oct 9th, 2026
Gamma's Grant Lee, Engine's Elia Wallen, and GV's Crystal Huang on landing your first 1,000 customers

At TechCrunch Disrupt 2026, Gamma CEO Grant Lee, Engine CEO Elia Wallen, and GV general partner Crystal Huang will discuss strategies for acquiring the first 1,000 customers. They'll cover community building, product-led growth, founder-led sales, and word of mouth tactics for early-stage startups. Lee co-founded Gamma, an AI-powered visual communication platform approaching 100 million users that reached $100 million in annual recurring revenue in 2025. Wallen bootstrapped Travelers Haven in 2008 before shifting to Engine, which now serves over 30,000 businesses and one million travellers. In July, Engine acquired Options Travel and TempoTrip. Huang, who focuses on SaaS, infrastructure, and AI investments at GV, will provide the investor perspective on early customer traction.

Yahoo Finance
Sep 20th, 2026
Navan partners with Engine to expand travel booking options and boost platform loyalty

Navan has partnered with Engine, a travel and spend technology provider, to expand booking options for its users. The collaboration will integrate Engine's payment and fintech solutions into Navan's platform, streamlining bookings, adjustments and cancellations. Initial offerings will launch this month, with additional features following in subsequent months. The partnership aims to enhance platform stickiness by providing greater flexibility and control over travel plans. The move follows Navan's acquisition of AI-driven meetings platform BoomPop. In the second quarter, Navan reported 45% growth in gross bookings, exceeding $3 billion, whilst revenue reached $233 million, up 35% year-over-year. However, the integration introduces technical risks, including potential disruptions during rollout. Relying on external infrastructure also creates dependency risks if Engine faces operational or financial challenges.

Associated Press
Jul 31st, 2026
Engine acquires Options Travel to build AI-native booking tool for travel management companies

Engine has acquired Options Travel, a corporate travel management company with over 30 years of experience. Options Travel will continue operating independently under its current leadership, with all employees joining Engine. The acquisition follows nine months of collaboration, during which Engine identified significant technology gaps in the travel management company sector. Engine is now developing an AI-native online booking tool for the industry, featuring booking, payments, reporting, and customer management in a single dashboard. The new platform reduces booking times to 2.5 minutes, compared to the industry average of nearly 15 minutes. According to the Global Business Travel Association, nearly a third of corporate travel buyers are reconsidering their travel management company this year, primarily due to outdated technology rather than service quality. Engine will demonstrate the new platform at the GBTA Convention in Chicago from 3–5 August.

Business Wire
Jun 4th, 2026
Engine launches Omni lodging booking API, Trimble to embed technology across transportation products

Engine, a travel and spend management platform, has launched Omni, a free hotel booking API that allows companies to integrate Engine's booking capabilities into their own platforms. The API provides access to over one million properties worldwide with sub-second search performance, real-time rates and 24/7 support. Trimble, a global industrial technology company, is the first adopter, integrating Omni into Trimble Places, Trimble Road Call and Trimble CoPilot. These solutions serve nearly 800,000 customers across North America, primarily truck drivers who will gain seamless hotel booking access within their existing tools. Engine, backed by Telescope Partners, Blackstone, Elefund and Permira, serves over one million travellers and 30,000 businesses. The Omni integration with Trimble Places is currently available in North America, with other integrations expected soon.

Business Wire
Apr 15th, 2026
Engine cuts travel support time 15% with Salesforce's Agentforce AI agent Eva

Engine, a business travel platform serving over one million travellers, has expanded its collaboration with Salesforce, deploying Agentforce and Slack to manage complex travel operations. The company now handles over 800,000 annual customer support cases, with 50% resolved autonomously by its AI agent Eva. Engine built Eva using Agentforce Vibes in just 12 days. The system handles complex tasks like modifying group bookings and has reduced average handle time by 15% whilst improving customer satisfaction scores. Slackbot serves as the interface, enabling sales teams to access real-time traveller intelligence and reduce research time by 40%. The platform processes thousands of daily trip modifications, with group travel doubling over the past year and 80% of trips booked within seven days of departure. Engine's deployment is built on Salesforce's Data 360 and Trust Layer.