Staff Software Engineer, Ads

Curious about who thrives at Whatnot? We’ve found that embodying a low ego, growth mindset, and high-impact drive goes a long way here.

As our next Staff Software Engineer you should have:

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, a related field, or equivalent work experience

8+ years (for Staff) or 10+ years (for Senior Staff) of backend/distributed systems engineering experience.

Strong mastery of distributed systems fundamentals: consensus, partitioning, replication, coordination, sharding, state management, etc.

Deep experience with high-throughput, low-latency services and stream processing (e.g., Kafka, Flink, etc.).

Strong software design, algorithmic, and data-structure skills.

Proficiency in one or more languages (e.g., Python, Go) and scripting.

Experience with messaging, caches (e.g., Redis, RocksDB), time-series stores, and data pipelines.

Proven track record of leading architecture and scaling core systems under high load, especially in an ads, ranking, or ML serving context.

Excellent communication skills, ability to influence cross-organizational stakeholders.

Proven track record of delivering features end-to-end and can ship products and features lightning-fast without sacrificing quality.

Strong ownership instincts — capable of driving projects from inception to production and beyond.

The ability to pick up on new technologies very quickly.

Startup experience at a high-growth company — working in fast-paced, rapidly evolving product environments with frequent experimentation (nice to have).

Experience with ads systems (bidding, auction, attribution, measurement, etc.), infrastructure, and international commerce (nice to have).

We offer flexibility to work from home or from one of our global office hubs, and we value in-person time for planning, problem-solving, and connection. Team members in this role must live within commuting distance of our New York, Seattle, Los Angeles, and San Francisco hubs. 💰Compensation

The salary range may be inclusive of several levels that would be applicable to the position. Final salary will be based on a number of factors including, level, relevant prior experience, skills, and expertise. This range is only inclusive of base salary, not benefits (more details below) or equity.

Whatnot is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer. We value diversity, and we do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, parental status, disability status, or any other status protected by local law. We believe that our work is better and our company culture is improved when we encourage, support, and respect the different skills and experiences represented within our workforce.