Why is booking.com hiring so many developers?
By this time folks know that I've been working hard trying to recruit more people for booking.com. They didn't ask me to, but I do this because I find it fun and I like working with people. Also, if you read my expat blog, you know that I want to help people live and work in other countries. I'm very fortunate that this passion of mine fits very well with my current employer's desire to move people to Europe. Yes, I get paid a bonus for everyone I refer, but I also tell everyone that if they don't want to go through me, they can apply directly to our jobs portal. Extra money is nice, but I'll happily forego that if I can help you live your dream of being an expat.
By now, many of you have seen our advertisement on jobs.perl.org advertising that we're hiring 20+ Perl developers. Many people have speculated as to why. This is to put to rest some of rumors which seem to go around.
What surprised me about this is that many people aren't asking why we want to hire so many. They're just tossing out guesses. Aside from the person who mistakenly thought we were a recruiting agency, here are some of the wildly incorrect guesses I've heard.
- Employee Churn
- booking.com must be horrible to work for if they need to constantly replace programmers.
- Low pay
- Obviously booking.com isn't paying enough if they're struggling to find people.
- Incompetent
- Any shop trying to hire 20 Perl employees at once doesn't know what they're doing.
- Dutch IT workers must be awful
- If booking.com can't hire Dutch workers, clearly Dutch IT workers aren't very good
Frankly, I don't know why people keep tossing out such wild theories rather than asking, but they do. Many people seem to assume that we're malevolent or incompetent and it surprises me that people do this, but perhaps this is their experience with other companies.
Here's what's really going on.
- Employee Churn
- Actually, I see much lower churn here than at other companies I've worked at. People like working here.
- Low pay
- I've heard rumors that booking.com used to be like this many years ago. I know that they were struggling after the dot com crash, but they're not now. I don't know if this problem is really how it used to be, but it's not the case today.
- Incompetent
- We advertise that we want 20+ Perl programmers because we don't want people to think this is a one-shot deal. We deliberately limit our intake to ensure that their transition is as smooth as possible, but we still need more.
- Dutch IT workers must be awful
- No. The Netherlands has a fantastic hacking culture. The problem is simply that most of Europe has a severe shortage of skilled workers.
So why are we hiring so many? It's simple: we've been growing massively for several years. We actually have no problem finding plenty of new employees because we work so hard to recruit. We just know that we've been growing so fast for so long that we can only keep up with recruiting needs by keeping ourselves in front of the Perl community. That's why we donate a lot of money to the Perl Foundation, we sponsor conferences and we let people know that we'll pay people to move to Europe.
So I hope this will put to rest some of the rumors that appear to be swirling around. Booking.com is a fun place to work and Amsterdam is a lovely place to live.
Freelance Perl/Testing/Agile consultant and trainer. See http://www.allaroundtheworld.fr/ for our services. If you have a problem with Perl, we will solve it for you.
And don't forget to buy my book! http://www.amazon.com/Beginning-Perl-Curtis-Poe/dp/1118013840/
If I was better at Perl...I just might. :)
Perl is neither a sufficient, nor a necessary requirement. We've hired people with no or limited Perl skills, and we have not hired some people with great Perl skills.
At Booking.com, we need people that can, and will take responsibility, can grasp what the business want, and act accordingly. Lack of Perl skills can certainly be compensated, for instance by having good general programming and database knowledge.
If you're good, and have the willingness to learn Perl, don't hesitate to apply.
I think I need to retake my English classes... :)
I sure hope you guys are still hiring next year, because after I've finished my travels round australia I'm moving to amsterdam, and I love perl. So yeah, don't forget me!
Hi Ovid, I have applied this job post for two reason.
One, I'm curious how can you guys at booking.com can create such an awesome reservation system. I really want to learn how to create such a great things.
Two, I LOVE Amsterdam :) i't such a great city with diverse nationality. I've been in Arnhem for one year and frequently visiting Amsterdam since they have many many art/creative communities.
I have interviewed once by Ingrid, and next Thursday they said the IT department will interview me again.
Do you have any tips for the upcoming interview?
I wish I can join you there in Amsterdam and hacking a cool system with Perl :)
Hi, just found this post while doing a bit of research for booking.com, since I applied and got invited for a technical interview. I would appreciate some advice about what I can expect, especially as a non-Perl developer (I am mainly Java, with C++ before that, and some knowledge of Ruby and Python)
Can you tell me about the similar companies like Booking.com in Netherlands?
Nenad, how did that technical interview turn out for you? What are the topics they are interested in? (I'm considering applying for a position there and I'm a Java developer too).
At first glance Booking.com seems a professional and decent employer. I can not judge how it is like to work for them. I can only share my experience on the lame way they dealed with my application.
Briefly: After submitting my motivation and curriculum on a Front End Developer position. The booking portal confirmation page displayed a message reading I would hear from them soon. After more than 3 weeks (which I think is not soon), out of the blue I received a standarized email.
It said Booking.com wanted to know me better. To prove my skills and to find out how I would handle a priority list they attached a Front End Developer assignment. Although it was strange no explaination on the attachment was given. Also I was again asked for my resumee which I uploaded earlier.
I showed my dedication and worked out 3 areas of the provided assignment. While sending out I explicitly asked for a confirmation. Sadly I never received or heared anything after that.
My impression is that nobody ever looked at the assignment I made. In the source code, I included a 1px image pointing to a logger on my server. I never saw anything back in the tracker link. There is always a change that my assignment got blocked or is not up to the standards of Booking. If I had to hire anybody I would at least keep in touch and would ask when the person to hire does not sent anything back. If it is not the right person I would tell him.
After mailing 3 more times Booking.com did not bother to communicate they ignored me completly. I learned it is not wise to spend a few hours on an assignment while not have spoken anybody from Booking. Although I thought I wanted to work for them the reality is that Booking does not want to work with me.
To conclude: In my eyes Booking.com is very unreliable and does not hold their promise. It seems recruitment advertisements are out only to show how big and dominant they are. For me it was not possible to communicate with the recruitment department by e-mail. Sending an assignment was a quick and cheap way to filter me out. Not telling me is so cheap.
Lucky enhough there are plenty of employers in Amsterdam who respond professional and are willing to talk and hire decent people. If you meet a Dutch company. Double check if they are really seeking an expat. I have reacted to positions written in English although I speak German and French, Dutch is sometimes a requirement not listed.
I'd like to know booking.com recruit php developers? taking into account that I've been working on etourism systems, so I have a good knowledge about how hotels operates which help as culture, what do you think?
Cheers
phpist: yes, they hire PHP developers, so long as you're willing to learn Perl. Booking.com wants competent developers and they know they'll be able to pick up a new language.