Senior Backend Engineer, International Engineering

Whatnot; Kraków; Remote; PLN 150,000 - 230,000; Full time

Job summary

Whatnot, the largest live shopping platform, seeks a Senior Backend Engineer based in Poland. You will design and build highly scalable distributed systems supporting millions of transactions across multiple countries, partnering with product, operations, payments, logistics, and platform teams.

You will help expand our international footprint with focus on Germany, France, and the UK, working with cross-border infrastructure, tax compliance, and post-purchase experiences while improving buyer

Qualifications

• 5+ years of professional software engineering experience.
• Strong backend engineering experience in distributed systems or large-scale platforms.
• Experience designing, operating, and scaling reliable production services.
• Experience working with relational databases and event-driven architectures.
• Ability to drive projects independently from ambiguous problem statements to production launch.
• Excellent communication skills and ability to collaborate across engineering, product, operations, and business stakeholders.

Skills

Distributed systems

Backend engineering

Relational databases

Python or Go

Communication skills

Independent project execution

Job description

Join the Future of Commerce with Whatnot!

Whatnot is the largest live shopping platform in North America and Europe to buy, sell, and discover the things you love. Whether it's trading cards, fashion, electronics, or live plants, our sellers are building real businesses across hundreds of categories. We're building live commerce at a scale that's never been done in the West, and there's no playbook to copy. The people here are shaping how an entirely new industry develops.

As a remote co-located team, we're inspired by our values and anchored in hubs across the US, UK, Ireland, Poland, Germany, and Australia. We move fast, stay close to our users, and focus on the work that drives the most impact.

We're one of the fastest growing marketplaces and were recently named the #1 Best Startup Employer in America by Forbes. Check out the latest Whatnot updates on our news and engineering blogs and join us as we enable anyone to turn their passion into a business and bring people together through commerce.

Role

The International Engineering team at Whatnot builds the foundational systems that power our global expansion. Every new market introduces different payment methods, tax requirements, shipping constraints, consumer protections, and operational challenges, creating complex technical problems with direct business impact.

As a Senior Backend Engineer based in Poland, you'll work with a small, high-impact team across Poland and the US to design and build highly scalable distributed systems that support millions of transactions across multiple countries and regulatory environments. You'll partner closely with product, operations, payments, logistics, and platform teams, with an initial focus on Germany, France, and the UK.

The team owns critical operational and transactional systems across:

• Cross-border transaction infrastructure
• Tax and regulatory compliance
• International post-purchase experiences
• Marketplace operational tooling and automation

Your work will span core backend infrastructure and product-facing systems that directly improve buyer trust, seller success, and Whatnot's ability to scale globally.

You

Required

• 5+ years of professional software engineering experience
• Strong backend engineering experience in distributed systems or large-scale platforms
• Experience designing, operating, and scaling reliable production services
• Experience working with relational databases and event-driven architectures
• Ability to drive projects independently from ambiguous problem statements to production launch
• Excellent communication skills and ability to collaborate across engineering, product, operations, and business stakeholders

Preferred

• Strong proficiency in Python or Go
• Experience with payments, fintech, e-commerce, logistics, marketplace platforms, or compliance systems
• Experience building operational platforms, workflow systems, or transaction processing infrastructure
• Experience working in rapidly growing product organizations

Please note: Whatnot will only contact you through official @whatnot.com email addresses. If you see an email impersonating a Whatnot recruiter, please disregard and report it as spam.

EOE

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.