Engineering Lead
Barcelona
Engineering – Engineering /
Full-time /
Hybrid
About Longtail
At Longtail, we’re building an intelligent, autonomous decision-streaming platform for airlines. We combine scalable automation, proprietary algorithms, and contextual data to stream millions of real-time decisions directly into airline systems.
Our platform lets airlines offer every possible travel product across their network—giving travelers more options on thousands of routes worldwide.
The Role
You’ll be the founding technical lead for our new Barcelona engineering base, working closely with the founders to establish the team, architecture, and technical culture. Our systems are already live and powering real airline decisions, but we’re now expanding into new products and new infrastructure layers.
This role blends hands-on technical depth with organizational ownership—you’ll build, guide, and scale a team of senior engineers (SWE I and SWE II) while staying close to design, architecture, and delivery. Over time, this position is expected to evolve into Director of Engineering (Barcelona) as the team grows and additional managers come onboard.
In this role, you’ll
- Recruit, lead and mentor a team of senior engineers (initially 6–10 across SWE I and SWE II).
- Drive architecture and delivery across multiple projects, balancing platform stability with new 0→1 development.
- Stay close to the systems—review code, guide design discussions, and help engineers ship safely in a complex environment.
- Translate product and business goals into clear engineering direction and execution plans.
- Shape the technical culture of the Barcelona base—high trust, low bureaucracy, high accountability.
- Partner directly with founders on roadmap, hiring, and long-term architecture evolution.
- Build engineering excellence through strong documentation, testing, and observability practices.
- Represent the Barcelona team across the company as it scales.
Who You Are
- 12+ years of total experience, with at least 4+ years leading or mentoring other engineers.
- Deep technical background in backend or distributed systems.
- Hands-on and comfortable moving between code, architecture, and strategy.
- Strong design judgment—you balance clarity and speed with maintainability.
- Thrive in low-structure, high-autonomy environments.
- Excellent communicator; you mentor through reasoning and context, not control.
- Calm under pressure, structured in thought, collaborative by instinct.
Why Join Us
You’ll be the first engineering leader in Barcelona, helping build both the team and the systems that define the next chapter of Longtail.
You’ll have direct access to the founders, full context on the business, and genuine ownership over how the tech base grows.
If you’re motivated by building teams, shaping systems, and leading through clarity and trust, this is your opportunity to create something lasting.
We may use artificial intelligence (AI) tools to support parts of the hiring process, such as reviewing applications, analyzing resumes, or assessing responses. These tools assist our recruitment team but do not replace human judgment. Final hiring decisions are ultimately made by humans. If you would like more information about how your data is processed, please contact us.
