Steve Domin on Innovating Travel APIs

Anyone who has written software for the travel industry can tell you that it is in desperate need of innovation — shockingly many of their cobwebbed systems were built in the 70s. Today we speak with Duffel CEO Steve Domin, who is building tech that can finally align travel with the expectations of modern consumers. We open by exploring Steve’s journey into coding before diving into how Duffel is innovating travel. After touching on how the pandemic has impacted Duffel’s roll-out, Steve shares horror stories about the outdated tech and API systems that airlines use. We discuss Duffel’s service offerings and why Elixir is uniquely suited to solve the problems that Steve’s company is addressing. Steve then talks about the types of engineers that Duffel hires, his client base, and where his company is heading. Near the end of the episode, we ask Steve for his advice on selling your company on Elixir and we chat about the status of the London Elixir Meetup. Tune in for more insights on how Steve is using Elixir to make travel an effortless experience.

Key Points From This Episode:

• Introducing Duffel CEO Steve Domin.
• Steve shares details about his coding journey and career highlights.
• Insights into the old school ecosystem of Flash, Flex, and ActionScript.
• Exploring how Duffel is innovating the travel industry.
• Why Duffel accelerated their roll-out due to the pandemic.
• Steve unpacks the outdated tech and API systems that airlines use.
• Why Duffel decided to use Elixir to tackle their problems.
• The benefits of using Elixir when dealing with airline data.
• Steve gives listeners an overview of Duffel’s pipeline.
• Insights into the types of engineers that Duffel hires.
• Who Duffel’s clients are and how they’re onboarded.
• Steve reflects on some airline API horror stories.
• Hear about Duffel’s roadmap — the future is bright.
• What Elixir has uniquely enabled Duffel to do.
• Steve’s advice on selling Elixir to stakeholders in your company.
• The status of the London Elixir Meetup.

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

SmartLogic — https://smartlogic.io/
Steve Domin — https://stevedomin.com/about
Steve Domin on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevedomin/
Steve Domin on Twitter — https://twitter.com/stevedomin
Duffel — https://duffel.com/
Duffel Careers — https://duffel.com/careers
José Valim — https://twitter.com/josevalim
Flex — https://www.adobe.com/products/flex.html
Passenger Service System — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passenger_service_system
Global Distribution System — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_distribution_system
Sabre — https://www.sabre.com/
Amadeus — https://amadeus.com/en
‘Why does NDC matter to my travel business?’ — https://duffel.com/blog/why-does-ndc-matter-to-my-travel-business
IATA — https://www.iata.org/
Next.js — https://nextjs.org/
GoCardless — https://gocardless.com/
Twilio — https://www.twilio.com/
Stripe — https://stripe.com/
Thomas Bates — https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomas-bates-3908a74b/
Elixir London Meetup — https://www.meetup.com/Elixir-London/
Baris Balic — https://twitter.com/barisbalic

Special Guest: Steve Domin.