Senior Software Engineer, Forecasting & Real-Time Optimization

Lyft; San Francisco (CA); Hybrid; USD 148,000 - 185,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical insurance

Dental insurance

Vision insurance

Mental health benefits

Family building benefits

Child care benefits

Pet benefits

401(k) with match

Paid time off

Parental leave

Commuter benefits

Lyft credits

Lyft Pink membership

Job summary

Lyft is seeking a Senior Software Engineer for the Forecasting and Real-Time Optimization Platform (FORTOP) to design and operate production systems that turn streaming marketplace data into accurate forecasts. You’ll build real-time feature pipelines, model training and inference workflows, and the serving layer used by Dynamic Pricing and other products.

This hybrid, in-office role in San Francisco requires 5+ years of software engineering experience, strong distributed systems fundamentals,

Qualifications

• 5+ years of software engineering experience including backend or data systems in production.
• BS/MS or equivalent in Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or related field.

Responsibilities

• Lead projects end to end: drive multi-engineer projects from proposal and design through launch.
• Architect ML systems: design streaming feature pipelines, training/inference workflows, and signal serving.
• Partner with science to productionize ML models and build rollout/backtesting tooling.
• Own signal contracts: define interfaces and SLAs between forecasting signals and downstream consumers.
• Operate systems for peak events: monitor latency, freshness, error rates, and incident response.
• Code quality: write well-tested code and improve team practices.
• Collaborate across functions to align roadmaps and tradeoffs.
• Grow the team: mentor engineers and participate in hiring.

Skills

Distributed systems

Backend engineering

Real-time data

ML model production

Code reviews

Education

BS/MS in Computer Engineering/CS

Tools

Flink

Beam

Spark

Kafka

Kinesis

Job description

At Lyft, our purpose is to serve and connect. We aim to achieve this by cultivating a work environment where all team members belong and have the opportunity to thrive.

Marketplace teams are at the heart of Lyft’s products and decision-making. We’re looking for passionate, driven engineers to build systems that empower our users (both drivers and riders) to make the most effective use of Lyft’s products and experiences by making them more predictive, personalized, and adaptive. The ideal candidate enjoys solving problems with distributed computing for ML and forecasting models, and finding patterns and insights in real-world data while building reliable systems, and is excited about working in a fast-paced, innovative, and collegial environment.

The Forecasting and Real-Time Optimization Platform (FORTOP) team in Lyft’s Rideshare Experience & Marketplace (REM) org provides reliable, real-time market supply and demand signals and forecasts that power the systems making critical automated decisions for Lyft’s business. These signals feed many of Lyft’s most important marketplace products, including Dynamic Pricing, Real-Time Supply Management, Fulfillment, and more.

As a Senior Software Engineer on FORTOP’s forecasting team, you’ll lead the design and operation of the production systems that turn streaming marketplace data into accurate, reliable forecasts: real-time feature pipelines, model training and inference infrastructure, backtesting and evaluation tooling, and the serving layer that downstream products query continuously. You’ll work closely with our scientists to take models from prototype to production, and with downstream teams to define the contracts and reliability guarantees they build on. The work involves forecasting both rider demand and driver supply as they shift with traffic, holidays, and major events, and keeping systems correct and fast during the peaks when they matter most.

Responsibilities:

Lead projects end to end: Drive multi-engineer projects from proposal and technical design through launch. Break work into milestones, align dependencies with partner teams, and own estimates.

Architect ML systems: Design and evolve streaming feature pipelines, training and inference workflows, and signal serving, and lead design reviews with attention to latency, correctness, scalability, and cost. Reduce complexity by consolidating or sunsetting components.

Partner with science to ship: Partner with scientists to design/productionize ML models. Build the rollout tooling (shadow, canary, rollback) and the backtesting and experimentation infrastructure that make launches safe and fast.

Own signal contracts: Define and maintain the interfaces, data contracts, and SLAs between forecasting signals and downstream consumers such as Dynamic Pricing and Driver Incentives.

Operate what you build: Monitor system health (latency, freshness, error rates) and signal quality (accuracy, bias, drift), and prepare systems for peak events. Take part in on-call, lead post-incident investigations, and drive action items to completion.

Code quality: Write well-tested, maintainable code and give code reviews that improve the work of others. Coach teammates on testing and engineering practices.

Collaborate across functions: Work with Product, Science, and partner engineering teams to frame problems, shape the roadmap, and make clear tradeoffs between accuracy, latency, and complexity.

Grow the team: Mentor engineers, take part in hiring and onboarding, and share knowledge through design docs, runbooks, and tech talks.

Experience:

5+ years of software engineering industry experience, including building and operating backend or data systems in production

BS/MS or equivalent in Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or related field or relevant work experience

Experience designing and leading delivery of large-scale distributed systems, and owning their reliability through monitoring, on-call, and incident response

Solid distributed systems fundamentals: fault tolerance, delivery semantics, and consistency tradeoffs

Track record of leading ambiguous, multi-engineer projects and mentoring other engineers

Clear written communication, including design docs that align stakeholders

Preferred: Experience building production ML models and infrastructure, such as model choice, feature engineering and pipelines, training and inference pipelines, model serving, or ML platforms

Preferred: Hands-on experience with stream or large-scale batch processing (Flink, Beam, Spark, or similar) and distributed messaging (Kafka, Kinesis, or similar)

Preferred: Experience with time series forecasting systems, or familiarity with backtesting and forecast evaluation (error metrics, bias, calibration)

Preferred: Experience with online experimentation or real-time decision systems such as pricing, dispatch, or marketplace balancing

Preferred: Comfort using AI-assisted development tools to move faster without compromising quality

Benefits:

Great medical, dental, and vision insurance options with additional programs available when enrolled

Mental health benefits

Family building benefits

Child care and pet benefits

401(k) plan with company match to help save for your future

In addition to 12 observed holidays, salaried team members have discretionary paid time off, hourly team members have 15 days paid time off

18 weeks of paid parental leave. Biological, adoptive, and foster parents are all eligible

Subsidized commuter benefits

Monthly Lyft credits and complimentary Lyft Pink membership

Lyft is an equal opportunity employer committed to an inclusive workplace that fosters belonging. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regards to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status, age, genetic information, or any other basis prohibited by law. We also consider qualified applicants with criminal histories consistent with applicable federal, state and local law.

Lyft highly values having employees working in-office to foster a collaborative work environment and company culture. This role will be in-office on a hybrid schedule — Team Members will be expected to work in the office 3 days per week on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. Lyft considers working in the office at least 3 days per week to be an essential function of this hybrid role. Your recruiter can share more information about the various in-office perks Lyft offers. Additionally, hybrid roles have the flexibility to work from anywhere for up to 4 weeks per year. #Hybrid

The expected base pay range for this position in the San Francisco area is $148,000 - $185,000, not inclusive of potential equity offering, bonus or benefits. Salary ranges are dependent on a variety of factors, including qualifications, experience and geographic location. Your recruiter can share more information about the salary range specific to your working location and other factors during the hiring process.