Agile Coach

About Us:

At Booking.com, data drives our decisions. Technology is at our core. And innovation is everywhere. But our company is more than datasets, lines of code or A/B tests. We’re the thrill of the first night in a new place. The excitement of the next morning. The friends you encounter. The journeys you take. The sights you see. And the memories you make. Through our products, partners and people, we make it easier for everyone to experience the world.

About the Team:

Our team is dedicated to embedding agile values and principles across the organization. Our mission is to foster a culture where continuous improvement, collaboration, and customer-centricity are at the heart of everything we do.

Through education and coaching, we equip individuals and teams with the mindsets, behaviours, and practices needed to thrive in agile environments. We lead transformational change by guiding teams and departments through shifts in mindset, culture, and ways of working.

By promoting transparency, collaboration, and empowerment, we cultivate an environment where teams take ownership, adapt quickly, and tackle complex challenges together. We drive continuous improvement by proactively identifying constraints to value delivery and evolving behaviours and processes that support long-term, sustainable growth.

We’re also passionate about building community—nurturing vibrant communities of practice that enable knowledge sharing, peer support, and ongoing learning, ensuring innovation stays at the core of how we work.

Role Description:

An Agile Coach works with teams, tracks and senior stakeholders across Product and Engineering to improve the delivery of high-quality, working software and sustainable business outcomes. They help teams and stakeholders understand current and target conditions, use relevant data and feedback to improve delivery capabilities and behaviours, and adopt effective processes, tooling, standards and guardrails.

Agile Coaches build psychological safety, influence without formal authority, and support lasting change through adaptive coaching, teaching, facilitation, consulting and advising. This is an individual contributor role with no line-management responsibility.

Key Job Responsibilities and Duties:

Work with teams to deliver working software:

• Partner with Product and Engineering structures across teams and tracks to improve the effective delivery of high-quality, working software, while keeping customer and business outcomes visible.
• Surface delivery risks, impediments and systemic constraints early, and facilitate the right people to agree and implement sustainable responses.
• Lead by example and coach product teams to use relevant delivery metrics, observations and feedback to understand progress and improve outcomes.
• Coach individuals and teams to improve delivery capability, focus on the continuous delivery of working software and develop sustainable ways of working.
• Leverage AI tools and capabilities to optimize team-level workflows, enhance delivery efficiency, and support modern agile practices.

Influencing Behavioral Change:

• Lead efforts to influence product teams to continually learn and adapt by creating a culture where teams are open to experimentation, feedback and new ways of delivering working software.
• Enable teams to get early feedback by delivering working software in small and frequent iterations.
• Foster a culture of continuous improvement by helping teams identify challenges and empowering them to develop their own solutions.
• Promote a sustainable pace of delivery by improving planning and continuous delivery practices and by supporting adoption of effective processes, tooling, standards and guardrails.
• Adapt the coaching stance and intervention to the context, need and readiness of the team or stakeholder, knowing when to coach, teach, facilitate, consult or advise.
• Instills a mindset of continuous improvement by coaching and teaching teams the tools and techniques to continuously evolve their ways of working
• Build commitment and gain support for initiatives by influencing without formal authority through emotional intelligence, clear communication, persuasive communication and alignment of stakeholder expectations.

Continuous Improvement:

• Work across teams, tracks and stakeholder levels to identify meaningful delivery or organisational challenges, understand the current situation and define a clear direction for change.

• Use data, observations and feedback with humility and an open mind to test assumptions, guide experiments and assess progress towards meaningful outcomes.

• Drive progress towards a target condition by understanding where stakeholders are, where they need to be and the steps required to get there.

• Involve the right people, offer an informed perspective and remain engaged until the agreed change is implemented and embedded.

• Engage directly with problems rather than only identifying them, take ownership of decisions and follow through on sustainable solutions

Culture of psychological safety:

• Build psychological safety and healthy conflict so teams and stakeholders can share ideas, concerns and alternative perspectives openly.
• Help teams and stakeholders identify and address root causes using sustainable approaches such as root-cause analysis and the Five Whys, while making unresolved systemic issues visible.

Stakeholder Management:

• Identify key stakeholders for a project, plan or decision, including stakeholders across teams, tracks and senior leadership.
• Build trusted cross-functional relationships through active listening, noticing what is said and unsaid, valuing different perspectives and remaining open to evidence and being wrong.
• Effectively engage stakeholders and build buy-in through clear, audience-appropriate communication and a structured change-management approach.
• Influence without formal authority by creating shared understanding, surfacing trade-offs and securing commitment to meaningful change.

Negotiating:

• Works towards mutually beneficial outcomes by understanding the needs and motives of others and responding to them during negotiations.

Consulting/Advising:

• Train, coach and mentor stakeholders up to and including Senior Director level, adapting the approach to their context and needs.
• Share experience and practical approaches that improve stakeholder performance, address impediments and build ownership beyond the coach’s direct involvement.

Coaching / Mentoring:

• Train, coach and mentor stakeholders up to and including Senior Director level, adapting the approach to their context and needs.

• Share experience and practical approaches that improve stakeholder performance, address impediments and build ownership beyond the coach’s direct involvement.

Qualifications & Skills:

• Broad Job Knowledge (at least 3 - 5 years)
• Full understanding of the agile principles
• Differing agile methodologies (e.g. scrum, kanban, XP etc)
• Knowledge in the software delivery life cycle including but not limited to continuous delivery and walking skeletons.
• Relevant background in an Engineering or Product role.

Benefits & Perks - Global Impact, Personal Relevance:

Booking.com’s Total Rewards Philosophy is not only about compensation but also about benefits. We offer a competitive compensation and benefits package, as well unique-to-Booking.com benefits which include:

Annual paid time off and generous paid leave scheme including: parent, grandparent, bereavement, and care leave

Hybrid working including flexible working arrangements, and up to 20 days per year working from abroad (home country)

Industry leading product discounts - up to 1400 per year - for yourself, including automatic Genius Level 3 status and Booking.com wallet credit

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) at Booking.com:

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion have been a core part of our company culture since day one. This ongoing journey starts with our very own employees, who represent over 140 nationalities and a wide range of ethnic and social backgrounds, genders and sexual orientations.

Take it from our Chief People Officer, Paulo Pisano: “At Booking.com, the diversity of our people doesn’t just build an outstanding workplace, it also creates a better and more inclusive travel experience for everyone. Inclusion is at the heart of everything we do. It’s a place where you can make your mark and have a real impact in travel and tech.”

We ensure that colleagues with disabilities are provided the adjustments and tools they need to participate in the job application and interview process, to perform crucial job functions, and to receive other benefits and privileges of employment.

Application Process:

• Cv review
• Recruiter/ Sourcer Interview
• Business Interview 1
• Business Interview 2 with live business case
• FIT/ Final Interview

Let’s go places together: How we Hire

This role does not come with relocation assistance.

Booking.com is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace and is an affirmative action employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, disability, age, or veteran status. We strive to move well beyond traditional equal opportunity and work to create an environment that allows everyone to thrive.

If your application is successful, your personal data may be used for a pre-employment screening check by a third party as permitted by applicable law. Depending on the vacancy and applicable law, a pre-employment screening may include employment history, education and other information (such as media information) that may be necessary for determining your qualifications and suitability for the position.