Software Engineer - Backend (Python)

About the role

The ML Data Engineering team at Scribd, Inc. powers metadata extraction, enrichment, and content understanding across all Scribd brands. We process hundreds of millions of documents, billions of images, and deliver high-quality metadata to enable content discovery and trust for millions of users worldwide. This role offers the opportunity to work on cutting-edge generative AI and metadata enrichment problems at a truly global scale.

Responsibilities

• Design and implement event-driven, distributed systems to extract, enrich, and process metadata from large-scale document and media datasets.
• Build and maintain scalable APIs and backend services for high-throughput content processing.
• Leverage AWS services (ECS, Lambda, SQS, ElastiCache, CloudWatch) to design and deploy resilient, high-performance systems.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to deliver backend solutions that power ML-driven features.
• Optimize and refactor existing backend systems for scalability, reliability, and performance.
• Ensure system health and data integrity through monitoring, observability, and automated testing.

Requirements

• 5+ years of professional software engineering experience on Python or distributed systems development.
• Strong proficiency in Python (3+ years).
• Experience with Scala is a plus.
• Proven experience designing and building event-driven, distributed, and scalable systems.
• Hands-on experience with AWS services (ECS, Lambda, SQS, SNS, CloudWatch, etc.).
• Solid understanding of system performance, profiling, and optimization.
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or equivalent professional experience.
• Bonus: Familiarity with data processing frameworks (Spark, Databricks) and workflow orchestration tools.
• Bonus: Experience integrating ML or LLM-based models into production systems.

Qualifications

• Commensurate with experience.
• Not specified.
• N/A.
• Varies.
• TBD.

Skills

• Python programming skills.
• Experience with AWS services.
• Experience with infrastructure-as-code tools.
• Understanding of system performance and optimization.
• Familiarity with data processing frameworks and workflow orchestration tools.
• Experience with ML or LLM-based models.

Benefits

• Scribd Flex (flexible work model)
• Comprehensive health, dental, and vision coverage
• Mental health support and disability coverage
• Generous paid time off, including vacation, sick time, holidays, winter break, volunteer time, and sabbaticals
• Paid parental leave and family support benefits
• Retaily retirement matching and employee equity
• Learning and development programs and professional growth opportunities
• Wellness and home office stipends
• Complimentary access to the Scribd, Inc. suite of products
• Enterprise access to leading AI tools

Pay

The salary range listed is for the level at which this job has been scoped. In the event that you are considered for a different level, a higher or lower pay range would apply.

Schedule

Occasional in-person attendance is required for all Scribd, Inc. employees, regardless of location.