Despegar Search Box
The search experience for Latin America's largest travel company
Role: Full Stack Developer
Rol: Desarrollador Full Stack
Overview
A micro-frontend service built with Preact and Node.js/Express that delivers the primary search entry point across all Despegar properties and white-label partners. Handles multi-product search flows — flights, hotels, packages, transfers, activities — with geo-autocomplete, date logic, and passenger configuration. Deployed on Kubernetes and served as dynamic bundles to dozens of domains across Latin America.
The Challenge
The search box is the single most critical UI at Despegar — it's the conversion funnel entry point for millions of users across different products, locales, and white-label partners. Every change must be A/B tested with real traffic, and any regression is immediately felt in conversion metrics.
The Approach
Every feature ships behind an A/B test parsed from query params. I contributed across the full breadth of the service: the Sofia WhatsApp AI integration (login-aware, modal flow, feature-flagged rollout), ML-powered recommendations in autocomplete, hotels tab for white-label partners, accommodation region support, transfers autocomplete fixes, Cypress E2E test coverage, and Hotjar analytics instrumentation.
The Outcome
Features shipped are live for millions of daily users across LATAM. The Sofia integration opened a new conversational search channel via WhatsApp. Recommendation improvements increased destination discovery engagement.