Savan Thakker

About Savan Thakker

Senior Software Engineer with 9+ years of experience building and scaling mission-critical backend, data, and platform systems for consumer-scale products. Specializes in marketplace health, policy enforcement, and trust & safety systems for large-scale, two-sided platforms.At Expedia Group, I’ve owned and delivered critical marketplace initiatives in the Marketplace Health / Trust & Safety domain, directly influencing VRBO host behavior, traveler experience, and overall marketplace reliability.My work includes leading the Host Cancellation Fee Automation MVP for VRBO, a top company-wide 2025 initiative, driving measurable outcomes such as automated recovery of millions in cancellation fees, reducing cancellation rates and materially improving host behavior post-launch.I’ve also owned large-scale policy enforcement and supply-quality systems, including the Below Minimum Standards (BMS) Stop-Sell program impacting properties and contributing to an estimated $180M in business impact, as well as traveler-facing systems like the service powering Expedia’s VIP Access program.I thrive in ambiguous, high-impact problem spaces requiring strong ownership across architecture, delivery, launch readiness, and long-term operability.I enjoy partnering closely with Product, Data Science, Policy, and Operations teams to translate complex requirements into reliable, production-ready systems.Currently exploring senior backend and platform engineering opportunities focused on marketplace systems, distributed platforms, and high-scale production environments.

Experience

1. Software Engineer Iii

   Expedia Group

   Aug 2022 — Present · Austin, TX, US

   Owned and delivered high-impact marketplace systems in the Marketplace Health / Trust & Safety domain, influencing VRBO host behavior, traveler experience, and platform reliability.• Led the Host Cancellation Fee Automation MVP for VRBO vacation rentals, a top Expedia Group 2025 initiative, replacing manual invoicing with a fully automated, scalable system• Automated 23K+ host cancellations in the first quarter post-launch (Q3 2025), triggering $5.6M in fees with $4.2M collected (79.9%), a 4× improvement over prior manual processes• Owned the Below Minimum Standards (BMS) Stop-Sell program, automating suspension and lifecycle management for VRBO properties and contributing to an estimated $180M business impact• Architected a property tiering service powering Expedia’s VIP Access program, influencing traveler-facing ranking, eligibility, and booking experiences• Led development of a policy management platform supporting cancellations, relocations, party-house violations, and compliance workflows• Played a key role in migrating legacy services to Kubernetes and strengthening observability across logging, metrics, and tracing

Education

• San José State University

  Master of Science (M.S.), Computer Software Engineering

  2015 — 2017

• LDRP-ITR, Gujarat Technological University

  Bachelor of Engineering (B.E.), Computer Engineering

  2010 — 2014

Skills

• Elasticsearch
• Microsoft Office
• Javascript
• Uml
• C
• Rabbitmq
• Java
• Css
• Html
• Online Lead Generation
• Microsoft Word
• Intellij Idea
• Html5
• Angularjs
• Phpmyadmin
• Sql
• Restful Webservices
• Php
• Eclipse
• Digital Marketing
• Hadoop
• Search Analysis
• Project Management
• Amazon Web Services (Aws)
• Wordpress
• Node.js
• Elast
• Mysql
• Google Analytics
• SEO
• Powerpoint
• Google Webmaster Tools
• Mongodb