Staff Software Engineer, Backend (Marketplace/App Experience)

Accountabilities

• Provide technical leadership for backend systems supporting marketplace discovery, search, recommendations, and consumer-facing experiences.
• Balance hands-on engineering, architectural decision-making, operational ownership, and cross-functional collaboration.
• Define and drive technical strategy for the team, connecting long-term engineering goals with high-impact business initiatives.
• Design, develop, and launch scalable backend systems that support marketplace experiences and platform growth.
• Lead architecture decisions, identify technical risks and trade-offs, and establish sustainable engineering solutions.
• Collaborate with product managers, designers, analysts, and engineering teams throughout the product development lifecycle.
• Build and improve highly available distributed systems with strong focus on reliability, scalability, and performance.
• Establish engineering best practices through code reviews, technical documentation, design standards, and knowledge sharing.
• Own team operational excellence by implementing monitoring, alerting, testing strategies, incident processes, and reliability practices.
• Contribute directly to complex engineering projects, including major feature development, system improvements, and platform modernization.
• Mentor engineers by providing technical guidance, feedback, and support for professional growth.
• Promote a culture of quality, ownership, and continuous improvement across engineering teams.

Requirements

• Experienced backend engineer with a strong background in distributed systems, technical leadership, and building consumer-facing products at scale.
• 8+ years of experience designing, developing, and launching backend systems using technologies such as Python, Kotlin, or similar programming languages.
• Proven experience building highly available distributed systems using technologies such as AWS, MySQL, Spark, Kubernetes, or comparable platforms.
• Experience developing consumer experiences with modern UI frameworks such as React is preferred.
• 2+ years of experience working with search systems, recommendation engines, or related discovery technologies.
• Demonstrated ability to lead major technical initiatives, define execution strategies, and deliver complex system improvements.
• Strong understanding of software architecture, system design, scalability, and engineering best practices.
• Able to navigate ambiguity and move effectively between low-level implementation details and large-scale system architecture.
• Strong communication skills with the ability to collaborate effectively across global engineering and cross-functional teams.
• Experience mentoring engineers and influencing technical direction beyond individual contributions.
• Bachelor’s degree in a related field or equivalent practical experience.

Benefits

• Competitive base salary range: USA Pacific locations: $230,000 - $290,000 annually. Other U.S. locations: $204,000 - $264,000 annually.
• Comprehensive total compensation package including equity opportunities.
• Remote-first work environment with flexibility to work from anywhere within the country of employment.
• Fully covered healthcare premiums for employees and dependents.
• Dental and vision coverage.
• Flexible spending wallets and stipends for technology, food, lifestyle needs, and family-related expenses.
• Competitive vacation and holiday schedules to support work-life balance.
• Employee stock purchase plan with discounted share opportunities.
• Inclusive workplace culture with accommodations available throughout the hiring process.