Senior Software Engineer

About the role

We're hiring Senior Software Engineers across multiple engineering pillars at Whatnot — including Buyer Growth, Seller Growth, Trust & Risk, Discovery & Personalization, Search, Customer Experience, and Core Infrastructure. As a Senior Software Engineer, you'll own the design and delivery of complex product and platform systems that power one of the fastest-growing marketplaces in the world.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and operate scalable distributed systems that power core marketplace experiences.
• Own complex technical projects from inception through production, balancing speed, reliability, and long-term maintainability.
• Break down ambiguous product and platform problems into clear technical solutions and drive them to completion.
• Lead the engineering execution of projects, coordinating with multiple engineers and cross-functional partners to deliver high-impact outcomes.
• Make pragmatic technical decisions that enable the team to move quickly while building for long-term scale.
• Continuously identify opportunities to improve developer velocity, system reliability, and customer experience.

Requirements

• 5+ years of full-time software engineering experience, ideally in high-growth technology companies.
• Experience building and operating scalable backend or full-stack systems in production.
• A track record of independently owning complex technical projects from design through launch.
• Experience breaking down ambiguous product or platform problems into practical technical solutions.
• Strong system design skills and experience building reliable, maintainable distributed systems.
• The ability to lead engineering execution for initiatives involving multiple engineers while partnering effectively with Product, Design, Data Science, and other cross-functional teams.
• A strong bias toward action—you move with urgency, make thoughtful trade-offs, and consistently deliver high-impact work.
• Excellent product instincts. You prioritize customer and business impact and can clearly articulate why the work you're doing matters.
• The ability to solve new and unfamiliar technical challenges with a high degree of autonomy.
• A track record of mentoring teammates and contributing to a collaborative, high-performing engineering culture.

Qualifications

• Experience with Python, Elixir, and JavaScript across backend and frontend systems, with infrastructure powered by modern cloud and data platforms.
• Strong engineering fundamentals and the ability to learn quickly.

Skills

• Comfortable figuring things out as they go.
• Biased toward action.
• Genuinely curious about what you're building.
• Passionate about building the best user experience.

Benefits

• Generous Holiday and Time off Policy
• Health Insurance options including Medical, Dental, Vision
• Work From Home Support
• Home office setup allowance
• Monthly allowance for cell phone and internet
• Care benefits
• Monthly allowance to dogfood the app
• All Whatnauts are expected to develop a deep understanding of our product.
• Compensation Range: $207K - $230K