Seattle, United States of America Hybrid Full-time USD 170000-230000/year

Whatnot is hiring a Software Engineer, Search & Discovery Platform

About the Role

As a Software Engineer on the Search & Discovery Platform, you'll play a key role in building the infrastructure behind a rapidly expanding livestream shopping experience. Your work will directly influence how users discover content through intelligent feed ranking, search, and taxonomy systems that operate at scale.

What You’ll Do

  • Design and implement backend services that support real-time, personalized content discovery
  • Develop low-latency, highly available systems to power feed, search, and recommendation functionality
  • Collaborate with machine learning, platform, and product teams to integrate models into scalable serving pipelines
  • Drive improvements across multiple layers of the discovery stack, from data ingestion to final presentation
  • Help define the long-term technical vision for recommendation and retrieval systems

What We’re Looking For

  • At least 5 years of professional software engineering experience
  • Degree in Computer Science, Mathematics, or a related technical field, or equivalent practical experience
  • Strong proficiency in server-side programming, particularly Python
  • Firm understanding of algorithms, data structures, and software design principles
  • Proven ability to build and maintain scalable backend systems
  • Experience with observability tools such as DataDog or Grafana
  • Familiarity with cloud platforms like AWS or Google Cloud and infrastructure-as-code tools like Terraform
  • Self-directed mindset with excellent communication and collaboration skills

Preferred Experience

  • Background in high-throughput, large-scale systems
  • Leadership in cross-functional initiatives and technical mentorship
  • Hands-on work in machine learning, particularly in recommendations, search, or content understanding
  • Knowledge of distributed data systems like Kafka, Kinesis, Flink, or Spark
  • Experience with search engines such as OpenSearch, ElasticSearch, Lucene, or SOLR
  • Skill in concurrent and asynchronous programming, especially using Python’s AsyncIO

Work Environment

This role operates in a hybrid model, with team hubs in Seattle, New York City, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. While remote work is supported, in-person collaboration is encouraged for planning, problem-solving, and team connection. You’ll be expected to engage with the platform as both a buyer and seller to maintain close alignment with user experience.

Culture & Values

The team values initiative, curiosity, and action. We prioritize outcomes over ownership, stay close to the product, and focus on building inclusive, supportive engineering practices. Engineers are empowered to explore solutions and iterate quickly.

Benefits

  • Comprehensive health coverage (Medical, Dental, Vision)
  • Generous time-off policy and 16 weeks of paid parental leave with a phased return option
  • Home office setup and monthly allowances for internet, wellness, and childcare
  • Support for family planning, including fertility and adoption
  • 401k with employer match (up to 4% of base salary) and international pension options
  • Monthly stipend to use the platform
  • Work-from-home flexibility and access to global office locations

Equal Opportunity

We are committed to an inclusive workplace. We welcome individuals of all backgrounds and do not discriminate based on race, religion, gender, age, veteran status, disability, or any other protected characteristic under local law.

Required Skills
PythonAWS SagemakerLambdaKinesisS3EC2EKSECSKafkaFlinkserver-side programmingalgorithmsdata structuressoftware design principles PythonAWS SagemakerLambdaKinesisS3EC2EKSECSKafkaFlinkserver-side programmingalgorithmsdata structuressoftware design principles
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About company
Whatnot
Whatnot is the largest livestream shopping platform in North America and Europe where users can buy, sell, and discover items across hundreds of categories such as trading cards, fashion, electronics, and live plants. The company enables sellers to build real businesses and is pioneering live commerce at scale in the West.
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Job Details
Department Engineering
Category backend
Posted 5 days ago