Senior Backend Engineer, Community & Live Experience

Whatnot; United States; Remote; USD 90,000 - 150,000; Full time

Job summary

An innovative company is seeking a Senior Backend Engineer to join their dynamic team focused on community and live experiences. This role involves owning the livestream experience and developing engaging features that enhance user interaction. You'll work in a fast-paced environment, prioritizing impactful features and delivering them quickly. With a commitment to diversity and a supportive culture, this position offers an exciting opportunity to contribute to a rapidly growing marketplace that combines community, shopping, and entertainment. If you're passionate about technology and eager to make a difference, this role is for you.

Benefits

Unlimited Vacation Policy

Health Insurance Options

Work From Home Support

Quarterly Allowance for Work-from-Anywhere

Paid Parental Leave

Quarterly Food Allowance

Quarterly Wellness Allowance

Laptop Provided

Stock Options

Company-wide Holidays

Qualifications

• 5+ years of backend or generalist software development experience.
• Ability to write code and ship features rapidly.

Responsibilities

• Own the core end-to-end livestream experience for users.
• Build social and community-driven features like messaging and giveaways.

Skills

Backend Software Development

Problem Solving

Product Decision Making

Frontend Development

Quick Learning of New Technologies

Education

Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science

Equivalent Work Experience

Tools

Python

Elixir

JavaScript

Job description

Senior Backend Engineer, Community & Live Experience

Pay Competitive

Location Remote

Employment type Full-Time

Job Description

• Req#: 4388373004

Whatnot

Whatnot is a livestream shopping platform and marketplace backed by Andreessen Horowitz, Y Combinator, and CapitalG. We’re building the future of ecommerce, bringing together community, shopping and entertainment. We are committed to our values, whether working remotely or from one of our offices. We are building a team that has experience from top tech, retail and payments platforms in the world.

We’re innovating in the fast-paced world of live auctions in categories including sports, fashion, video games, and streetwear. The platform couples rigorous seller vetting with a focus on community to create a welcoming space for buyers and sellers to share their passions with others.

And, we’re growing. Whatnot has been the fastest growing marketplace in the US over the past two years and we’re hiring forward-thinking problem solvers across all functional areas.

Opportunity Size

Retail disruption is one of the largest opportunities in the startup space today. Livestream shopping is taking off around the world – a $300B GMV market in China that’s grown 100% YoY. Whatnot is bringing it to the world through a community-first approach, starting in the U.S. where retail is a $5T market opportunity!

Role

Community and Live Experience are at the center of what makes the engaging and safe community Whatnot users love and trust. Not only do we own the core end-to-end livestream experience for our users, we're building all kinds of social and community-driven features such as direct messaging, giveaways, gifting and more. We are a full stack product engineering team looking for capable engineers of all kinds, whether you are a generalist or product/backend engineer.

The most important qualities you'll need are making sound product decisions, navigating new domains seamlessly, taking extreme ownership, and shipping high-quality products fast. We always prioritize the highest impact features and ship them quickly. Some sample projects you might work on on Community and Live XP teams include: direct messaging, order/seller reviews, giveaways, gifting, badging, and any brand new product features and tooling that help us ensure a meaningful and fun community on Whatnot.

You'll have a lot of individual responsibility and many more freedoms, so we need to hire people we can trust. Your ability to make good trade-offs and exercise good judgment is essential to us.

You

As our next Senior Backend Engineer, you should have 5+ years of backend or generalist software development experience in high growth startups, plus:

• You can write code - experience programming in a professional setting (we primarily use Python, Elixir, JavaScript - knowledge of these in particular not required).
• Excellent product instincts. You first think about users rather than the best technical solution.
• You’re an excellent problem solver, and can ship features fast.
• You’re open to doing frontend work when required.
• Ability to pick up on new technologies very quickly.
• Proven track record of delivering features.
• You hold a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, a related field, or have equivalent work experience.

Benefits

• Competitive base salary and stock options
• Unlimited Vacation Policy and Company-wide Holidays (including a spring and winter break)
• Health Insurance options including Medical, Dental, Vision, Life, Short term disability & Long term Disability
  • Whatnot covers 99% of employee premium costs, and 75% of dependent care premiums for Medical
  • Dental and Vision sponsored 100% by Whatnot for employees and dependents
• Work From Home Support
  • Laptop provided by Whatnot and home office setup allowance
  • $450 work-from-anywhere quarterly allowance for cell phone, internet, or co-working space
• Up to $500 monthly to spend within Whatnot App
• Care benefits
  • $1,350 quarterly allowance on food
  • $1,500 quarterly allowance for wellness
  • 16 weeks Paid Parental Leave and gradual return to work
  • $20,000 for family planning, such as adoption or fertility expenses

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.

About the company

Whatnot is a community marketplace where you can safely buy, sell, go live and geek out with collectors and other like-minded people. All items on Whatnot are verified. Shop on web or download the app.