Staff Software Engineer (Availability)

About the role

The Diner Core Availability team builds and operates the systems that power availability search for the core diner experience -delivering fast, reliable booking options across our global network. We serve millions of diners, handle several thousands of searches per second, and operate under strict low-latency and high-reliability requirements. The team owns the end-to-end lifecycle of availability queries: from ingesting upstream changes (inventory, policies, events) through event-driven pipelines, to maintaining highly-optimized in-memory and distributed cache layers, to responding to real-time search requests from web and mobile clients. We're looking for a Staff Engineer who applies a deep understanding of the underlying technologies and dependencies to solve problems. They help raise the bar on performance, reliability, and simplicity as we scale availability search at OpenTable. Technologies you'll work with include C#/.NET , Redis , in-memory and distributed caches , RESTful APIs, and Kafka-based event-driven architectures (EDA) .

Responsibilities

• You'll be both a hands-on engineer and a technical leader : writing code, writing technical design docs, reviewing design docs, and owning solutions end-to-end from design through rollout, observability, and ongoing iteration.
• Code craft and architecture
• Design, implement, and evolve C#/.NET services and APIs that expose availability information to internal and external consumers.
• Own the architecture of availability search services and related caches, ensuring low-latency, high-throughput performance at global scale.
• Define strategies for in-memory and distributed caching (e.g., Redis) that balance freshness, consistency, and cost.
• Lead the evolution of our event-driven architecture (Kafka) for propagating inventory, configuration, and policy changes into availability systems.
• Make pragmatic trade-offs between delivery speed , technical quality , operational risk , and cost
• Use AI tooling thoughtfully (e.g., for design exploration, code generation, test scaffolding, and incident analysis) to increase team velocity while maintaining a high quality bar
• Drive execution and outcomes
• Break down large, ambiguous availability initiatives into sequenced technical workstreams
• Provide reliable estimates and hold yourself accountable to delivery commitments, while adjusting plans thoughtfully as new information emerges.
• Proactively identify and unblock cross-team dependencies across other backend and platform teams
• Represent the team in projects you own during sync meetings by providing clear, and actionable updates.
• Provide technical leadership
• Set and uphold code, design, and review standards for the team in C#/.NET and our surrounding ecosystem, with a focus on simplicity, testability, readability, and long-term maintainability.
• Represent the Diner Core Availability team in cross-team forums and communities of practice, ensuring our systems align with platform-wide standards while feeding local needs back into those standards.
• Foster a healthy, inclusive engineering culture : encourage thoughtful debate, blameless retros, and data-driven decision-making.

Requirements

• Technical experience
• Strong experience (5+ years) designing, implementing, and operating backend services in C#/.NET
• Proven track record building and scaling high-throughput, low-latency services (e.g., search, recommendation, or other read-heavy systems).
• Deep hands-on experience with Redis and other cache technologies , including key design, eviction strategies, cache invalidation patterns, and multi-layer caching topologies.
• Solid understanding of event-driven architectures and Kafka (or similar systems)
• Strong experience with database systems (SQL/NoSQL) , including schema design, indexing strategies, query optimization, and handling high-volume read/write workloads.
• Strong grasp of distributed systems fundamentals : consistency models, failure modes, circuit breaking, timeouts, retry/backoff strategies.
• Experience with observability and performance tuning in production (profiling, capacity planning, latency/throughput trade-offs).
• Comfortable using AI-assisted development tools (for example, to accelerate implementation, te

Benefits

Additional Information

This is a hybrid schedule (2x/week) role planned for our downtown Toronto, Canada office. About OpenTable With millions of diners and tens of thousands of restaurant partners around the world, OpenTable is an industry leader in online reservations. Our technology helps restaurants focus on what matters most - their guests, their teams, and their business - while giving diners a reliable, delightful way to find the perfect restaurant for any occasion. Every OpenTable employee has a tangible impact, contributing to a global team that includes our sister brand KAYAK and its portfolio of travel products. We believe hospitality is about taking care of others, and that ethos shapes both our products and how we work together.

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