Ben is a member of the White Label Template Standard team within the Private Label Solutions division at Expedia Group. He first joined in 2023 as part of the Intern Program and returned in 2024 to join the Graduate Program. Transitioning from an intern to a full-time software developer, Ben has embraced the differences, challenges, and opportunities that come with the role. He’s been involved in projects that truly matter, delivering real business value. Beyond that, Ben has eagerly picked up new technical skills that weren’t covered in college, using them to enhance the experience for our partners and travelers. His journey is a testament to the exciting and impactful work Grads get to experience on the program!

Ben Lambert | Software Development Engineer Graduate | Seattle, WA, USA

What was your college experience like and how did it help prepare you for your role?

The best part about university was meeting people from different backgrounds and working on collaborative projects, which honed my teamwork skills. College gave me a great foundation in computer science and developed my logical thinking skills that can be applied to a wide array of problems in software development, both frontend and backend. I have been exposed to new languages and technologies in my role that I didn’t learn in college, but I could transition to these new technologies since I had the foundations in place. Something I had no knowledge of before entering the industry is how large-scale software projects are deployed using docker and AWS. There is a lot of infrastructure used to deploy tools that are designed to be used by millions of people.

Tell us about your team

I’m in the White Label Template Standard team, which is a part of our B2B division at Expedia Group, but the end result of my team’s work is still customer-facing. We create custom-branded versions of the Expedia website for partners, allowing them to sell our inventory of hotels, cars, activities, in addition to their own products and services. Here’s an example of an EG White Label Template website which is managed by my team, and some teams we collaborate with. Recently, we’ve focused on loyalty messaging for our partners, but we handle various projects across these template websites.

Tell us about your role

I work with existing codebases that are used to build the expedia.com site, making sure it displays the correct branding for each partner. We use the JIRA agile model, and we work on individual tickets as they come up. My role is full-stack, involving backend logic and frontend message rendering. I get to collaborate with many teams, which helps with getting a better understanding of the business. Our work is meaningful and impactful, especially the loyalty messaging, which is crucial for new contracts being signed with demand partners, adding a huge amount of business value.

As an intern, I had a defined project for the duration of my program. As a Graduate, and a full-time developer, I work on individual tasks as they get requested which means I focus on different repositories across the company, so a lot of time is spent discovering these repositories and connecting with the right people. My favorite part of the role has been working closely with my team members. We have a really good sense of community amongst us, and I find it really rewarding to have experienced developers to learn from, who I get along well with and am comfortable asking them for help.

What are the key skills you have developed so far?

Technical skills: Kotlin – React – Typescript – GraphQL

I’ve learned a lot about systems programming, and a lot centered around the idea of server-driven User Interface, which I didn’t get a chance to learn in-depth at university. I had some exposure to all of these technologies individually before, but I have gained a really good understanding of how they all work together. I’ve also improved my collaboration skills, knowing when to ask questions, when to work through a problem on my own, and how to communicate effectively with people who are not fully versed in a project.

Can you share more about a recent project you have worked on?

A project I worked on was adding loyalty messaging for partners on the details page of package bookings. This was a large full-stack project and involved sending a signal from the backend package spinner containing details about the message being shown to the frontend code, in order to display it. I learned about the different repositories involved in this change, and then addressed each one in order. I enjoyed this project because I got to learn about the User Interface, and our server-driven UI principles. I discovered how data flows between backend and frontend, and how packages code works and is generated – which is one of the most complex lines of business at EG.

Why would you recommend a career at EG?

EG is a great place to start a career because there are so many ways the company tries to ease the transition from university into full-time work. For me, starting with the Intern Program was a perfect way to make this transition, as I had three months of exposure to how the company and the industry worked before fully starting my career with the Graduate Program. I loved the community I have built with the other interns and grads. EG also has a brilliant collaborative culture and great benefits, plus travel discounts. It all makes working here super rewarding and I highly recommend it!

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