Senior Staff Backend Engineer

Summary

Join Reddit as a Sr Staff Backend Engineer and lead technical efforts across various user-facing features, including Feeds, Posting, Commenting, Media, Profiles, and Reddit for Businesses and Publishers. This role demands extensive experience in building backend systems for social platforms and expertise in crafting systems for machine learning at scale. You will serve as a primary technical leader, driving architecture, design, and implementation while collaborating with engineers, MLEs, and PMs. The position involves working on problem spaces such as Feeds, Media, Contribution Services, Profile services, Video Ranking, Comments Ranking, AI Infrastructure, and User and Business Tools. You will lead key technical decisions, develop scalable infrastructure, collaborate with Core ML teams, and drive alignment on product and technical strategy. The ideal candidate possesses a strong background in backend systems for large-scale consumer platforms and experience with machine learning and AI models.

Requirements

• BS degree in Computer Science, a similar technical field of study or equivalent practical experience
• 5+ years of technical leadership experience that includes both setting and delivering on long-term vision
• 10+ years of hands-on, professional software development experience in one or more general purpose programming languages (Go, Python, Ruby, Java, C++)
• Proven experience building backend systems for large-scale consumer platforms, or social platforms in a high pace environment. Expertise in Feeds, Media, Ranking pipelines, and AI-driven products
• Background in developing infrastructure to support machine learning and AI models
• Experience with LLMs and building AI-driven consumer features
• Strong ability to lead and mentor teams while driving alignment on strategic goals

Responsibilities

• Lead key technical and design decisions across all areas mentioned above
• Lead teams to abstract monolithic systems into clean, isolated services to decouple product and infrastructure layers
• Develop scalable infrastructure for the end-to-end machine learning lifecycle, from experimentation to production
• Collaborate closely with Core ML teams to build/use embeddings to power consumer experiences, and optimize AI workloads
• Drive alignment on product and technical strategy with cross-functional teams, including engineering, AI, and product
• Maintain high standards of technical excellence while balancing business priorities
• Partner with other technical leads and managers across engineering and AI teams to ensure seamless integration and execution

Preferred Qualifications

• You’ve worked at a social platform or consumer-focused company, designing and scaling backend systems at massive scale
• You bring an understanding of the intersection of Backend with AI/ML on user-facing products
• You’re equally comfortable diving into codebases as you are making high-level architectural decisions
• You’re a thought leader and collaborative partner who thrives on tackling complex technical challenges

Benefits

• Comprehensive Healthcare Benefits and Income Replacement Programs
• 401k Match
• Family Planning Support
• Gender-Affirming Care
• Mental Health & Coaching Benefits
• Flexible Vacation & Reddit Global Days off
• Generous paid Parental Leave
• Paid Volunteer time off