About the position
We're looking for a Staff Software Engineer who brings expertise in reliability, performance, scalability, and software engineering best practices. You will leverage your experience to help solve some of our hardest problems, model best practices, and drive learning and improvement across engineering teams while contributing to broader software development initiatives. You will collaborate with product and platform teams to build robust, scalable, and high-performing systems that support our products and services. Our colocation work model supports employees both remotely and onsite each week. Employees are required to be in the office on Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday and as needed by their manager or the company. This hybrid working environment facilitates collaboration, increases work efficiency, and enhances employee growth.
Responsibilities
- Drive the evolution of our systems by identifying areas for improvement, setting technical direction, and leading architectural decisions to align with business objectives
- Work closely with engineering, product, and infrastructure teams to build robust, scalable applications
- Act as a technical mentor by guiding engineers in system design, best practices, and career growth, while fostering a culture of collaboration and learning
- Lead by example in writing clean, efficient, and well-documented code
- Shape the strategy for our search infrastructure, driving innovations in indexing, query performance, and scalability to support business needs
- Facilitate knowledge-sharing sessions, tech talks, and code reviews to elevate engineering excellence
Requirements
- 8+ years of experience in software engineering, with a track record of delivering reliable and scalable systems
- Experience with modern backend frameworks (e.g., Go, PHP, Python, etc.), expertise in distributed systems, and relational databases (e.g., MySQL, PostgreSQL)
- Experience designing and operating high-availability, high-scale systems
- Strong experience with Elasticsearch and other search technologies (e.g., Solr, OpenSearch, Vespa), with deep knowledge of indexing strategies, query optimization, sharding strategies, replication, and caching
- Skilled in testing and debugging search infrastructure, including load testing, query benchmarking, and failure scenario simulations to ensure scalability, performance, and reliability
- Strong problem-solving skills with the ability to design and implement end-to-end solutions
- Expertise in backend development using Hack, PHP, and Go (or similar modern backend frameworks) to build and optimize scalable server-side logic and APIs
- Excellent communication skills, with the ability to explain technical concepts to diverse audiences
Nice-to-haves
- Hands-on experience with Kubernetes, Terraform, ArgoCD, GitHub Actions, or similar tooling
- Familiarity with cloud infrastructure (Google Cloud, AWS, etc.) and modern DevOps practices
- Experience working with vector-based search applications
Benefits
- Total compensation for this role is market competitive, including a starting base salary of $184,000 - $225,000, depending on location and experience, as well as company stock options
- 20 vacation days (and we expect you to take them!)
- Competitive health, dental, and vision insurance (100% employee and 75% dependent PPO, HMO, VSP Choice)
- Employer-sponsored 401k plan with company match
- Access to LinkedIn Learning and other resources to support professional growth
- Paid Family Leave, FSA, HSA, Commuter benefits, and Wellness benefits
- 40 hours of annual paid time off to participate in volunteer programs of choice
