Senior Software Engineer, Fullstack

Thrive Market; California (MO); On-site; USD 160,000 - 190,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Comprehensive health benefits

401k Employer Match

Flexible Paid Time Off

Subsidized ClassPass Membership

Free Thrive Market membership

Coverage for Life Coaching & Therapy Sessions

Job summary

MERIT Beauty is looking for a skilled systems engineer to oversee architecture and systems for high-traffic applications. The ideal candidate should have over 5 years of experience in building and managing scalable systems with a solid foundation in computer science principles.

Benefits include comprehensive health plans, competitive salary from $160,000 to $190,000, and a Thrive Market membership. A focus on member-first solutions is essential in this role.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience in building and operating high-traffic customer-facing systems.
• Strong knowledge of object-oriented design and relational database design.
• Experience working with AWS services like Lambda and S3.

Responsibilities

• Own the architecture and evolution of your pod's systems end-to-end.
• Design for horizontal scale and low, uniform latency under real traffic patterns.
• Raise the bar on team's architectural and systems thinking.

Skills

5+ years building and operating high-traffic systems

Strong CS fundamentals

Strong object-oriented design

Fluency in multiple languages and stacks

Working knowledge of AWS

Experience with observability tools

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or related field

Tools

Kafka

AWS

New Relic

Datadog

Job description

ABOUT THRIVE MARKET

Thrive Market was founded in 2014 with a mission to make healthy and sustainable living easy and affordable for everyone. As an online, membership‑based market, we deliver the highest quality healthy, and sustainable products at member‑only prices, while matching every paid membership with a free one for someone in need. Every day, we leverage innovative technology and member‑first thinking to help our over 1,700,000+ members find better products, support better brands, and build a better world in the process. We are also a Certified B Corporation, a Public Benefit Corporation, and a Climate Neutral Certified company.

Join us as we bring healthy and sustainable living to millions of Americans in the years to come.

At Thrive Market, Product Engineering builds the systems members touch every day, from the home page through checkout, account, and renewal. You'll work closely with Product, Design, and Data to ship features that drive real outcomes for our members and the business.

We are not looking for a programmer or a language specialist, we are looking for an engineer. Someone with strong CS fundamentals, great OO, great relational data modeling, and a systems mindset. Someone who reaches for architecture, patterns, and platforms before they reach for syntax, and who picks the right tool for the job rather than the one they know best. Communication is concise and high‑level; orientation is big‑picture without losing the details that matter.

RESPONSIBILITIES

• Own the architecture and evolution of your pod's systems end‑to‑end.
• Make system‑level calls on when to introduce eventing (Kafka, SQS), workflow orchestration (Temporal, Airflow, DAGs), caching, async pipelines, or new services, and when not to.
• Design for horizontal scale and low, uniform latency under real Thrive traffic patterns.
• Decompose existing services into scalable components where it materially helps; avoid decomposition for its own sake.
• ie engineering decisions to outcomes. Instrument what you build; defend what you ship with data.
• Test‑driven from the start. Quality, reliability, and observability are first‑class, not afterthoughts.
• Bring Product and Design options and a recommendation, not a single path.
• Raise the bar on the team's architectural and systems thinking: mentor, review, challenge, elevate.
• Own the SLAs for the surfaces your pod runs.

QUALIFICATIONS

• 5+ years building and operating high‑traffic, customer‑facing systems.
• Strong CS fundamentals. Strong object‑oriented design. Strong relational database design and reasoning.
• Fluency at the system and cloud level: eventing (Kafka, SNS, SQS), workflow orchestration (Temporal, Airflow, DAGs), distributed systems tradeoffs, caching, async pipelines, idempotency, backpressure.
• Comfort working across multiple languages and stacks; language is a tool, not an identity. Our stack today includes PHP/Magento on the backend and React/Next on the frontend, on AWS; the right hire is comfortable moving between layers.
• Working knowledge of AWS (Lambda, S3, CloudWatch, SQS, etc.) and clear reasoning about tradeoffs between relational, document, and wide‑column stores.
• Track record of shipping high‑impact, customer‑facing features in production at scale.
• Communicates concisely and at the right altitude; defaults to options + recommendation, not exhaustive detail.
• Big‑picture orientation. Reasons about systems and outcomes; does not get lost in syntax.
• Member‑first. Prioritizes Customer, Team, and Business consistently.
• Observability and monitoring experience (New Relic, Datadog, or similar) to maintain SLA, Apdex, and error rate.

BELONG TO A BETTER COMPANY

• Comprehensive health benefits (medical, dental, vision, life and disability)
• Competitive salary (DOE) + equity
• 401k Employer Match
• 9 Days of Observed Holidays
• Flexible Paid Time Off
• Subsidized ClassPass Membership with access to fitness classes and wellness and beauty experiences
• Ability to work in our beautiful office in Playa Vista
• Free Thrive Market membership with exclusive employee discount
• Coverage for Life Coaching & Therapy Sessions on our holistic mental health and well‑being platform

JOB INFORMATION

• Compensation Description - The base salary range for this position is $160,000 - $190,000/Per Year.
• Compensation may vary outside of this range depending on several factors, including a candidate’s qualifications, skills, competencies and experience, and geographic location.
• Total Compensation includes Base Salary, Stock Options, Health & Wellness Benefits, Flexible PTO, and more!

Thrive Market is an EEO/Veterans/Disabled/LGBTQ employer.

At Thrive Market, our goal is to be a diverse and inclusive workplace that is representative, at all job levels, of the members we serve and the communities we operate in. We’re proud to be an inclusive company and an Equal Opportunity Employer and we prohibit discrimination and harassment of any kind. We believe that diversity and inclusion among our teammates is critical to our success as a company, and we seek to recruit, develop and retain the most talented people from a diverse candidate pool. If you’re thinking about joining our team, we expect that you would agree!

If you need assistance or accommodation due to a disability, please email us at [e-mail] and we’ll be happy to assist you.