Staff Backend Engineer

Summary

Join Reddit's Top of Funnel team as a Backend Engineer and lead the technical and design decisions for key user growth initiatives. You will work cross-functionally to build new products and features, contributing to the entire development lifecycle from design to launch. This role requires extensive experience in large-scale distributed systems, API design, and mentoring engineers. You'll be responsible for improving Reddit's logged-out experience, SEO, and user onboarding. Reddit offers a flexible work environment with remote options and a comprehensive benefits package.

Requirements

• BS degree in Computer Science, a similar technical field of study or equivalent practical experience
• 5+ years of industry experience in large-scale distributed systems
• 8+ years of hands-on, professional software development experience in one or more general purpose programming languages (Go, Python, Ruby, Java, C++)
• Experienced with GraphQL, REST, HTTP, Thrift basics, and the ability to design and implement maintainable APIs
• Experienced with distributed caching layers, and distributed large scale data storage systems like Cassandra
• A track record of developing and improving highly scalable and reliable serving systems
• Strong organizational skills, the ability to prioritize tasks and to deliver projects on schedule
• Entrepreneurial spirit. You are self-directed, innovative, and biased towards action in fast-paced environments. You love to build new things and thrive in ambiguity and even failure
• Excellent communication skills. You partner effectively with teams in a fully remote environment and discuss complex topics with technical and non-technical audiences

Responsibilities

• Lead key technical and design decisions across all areas mentioned above
• Work cross-functionally with product, design, and other engineering counterparts to execute on product and business strategy and build novel products and features that our users will love
• Contribute to the full development cycle: technical design, development, test, experimentation, analysis, and launch. You’ll be reviewing code and design docs, giving feedback on product specs and mocks
• Contribute meaningfully to team strategy. We give everyone a seat at the table and encourage active participation in planning for the future. Don’t just come along for the ride
• Participate with a team of thoughtful, fast-moving, and motivated engineers. Contribute to standards that improve developer workflows, recommend best practices, and help mentor junior engineers on the team to grow their technical expertise
• Move fast while balancing quality. We can’t afford extensive processes, and we also can’t afford show-stopping bugs. We need someone who can balance speed with quality while quickly building brand-new products

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience mentoring engineers, owning team processes, and leading cross-functional projects is preferred
• 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
• Knowledge in data engineering including design, development and implementation of complex systems and data pipelines
• Experience working with data streaming/batch solutions such as Kafka, Flink, Spark, Storm, or others

Benefits

• Private Medical, Dental and Vision Benefits
• Personal Retirement Savings Account with matching contribution
• Family Planning Support
• Gender-Affirming Care
• Mental Health & Coaching Benefits
• Cycle to Work and Tax Saver schemes
• Flexible Vacation & Reddit Global Days Off