Software Engineer (Backend, Python) - Content Understanding

About the role

The ML Content Understanding 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. Our systems operate at massive scale, supporting diverse datasets like user-generated content (UGC), ebooks, audiobooks, and more. We work at the intersection of machine learning, data engineering, and distributed systems, collaborating closely with applied research and product teams to deploy scalable ML and LLM-powered solutions in production.

Responsibilities

• Design and build scalable systems to extract, enrich, and process metadata from millions of documents, images, and audio content.
• Leverage LLMs to integrate capabilities like summarization, classification, extraction, and enrichment into metadata pipelines.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams, including ML engineers and product managers, to deliver scalable, efficient, and reliable metadata solutions.
• Optimize and refactor existing systems for performance, scalability, and reliability.
• Ensure data accuracy, integrity, and quality through automated validation and monitoring.
• Participate in code reviews, ensuring best practices are followed and maintaining high-quality standards in the codebase.
• Manage and maintain data pipelines, security and infrastructure.

Requirements

• 4+ years of professional software engineering experience.
• Proficiency in Python, Scala, Ruby, or similar languages.
• Experience designing and building distributed systems at scale.
• Hands-on experience building, deploying, and optimizing solutions using ECS, EKS, or AWS Lambda.
• Experience with infrastructure-as-code tools like Terraform (or similar).
• Experience working with a public cloud provider (AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud).
• Familiarity with data processing frameworks like Spark or Databricks for large-scale workloads.
• Proven ability to test, profile, and optimize systems for performance, scalability, and reliability.

Bonus

• Experience working with LLMs or integrating ML models into production systems.

Pay and Benefits

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. This position is also eligible for a competitive equity ownership, and a comprehensive and generous benefits package.

Working at Scribd, Inc.

We want our interview process to be accessible to everyone. You can inform us of any reasonable adjustments we can make to better accommodate your needs by emailing accommodations@scribd.com about the need for adjustments at any point in the interview process.

Get to Know Scribd, Inc.

Scribd, Inc. is committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, disability status, or any other characteristic protected by law. We encourage people of all backgrounds to apply, and believe that a diversity of perspectives and experiences create a foundation for the best ideas.