Staff Backend Engineer, Everand: Scale, Personalization, Reliability

Scribd, Inc.; Seattle (WA); Hybrid; USD 141,000 - 242,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Scribd Flex

Health coverage

Mental health support

Generous PTO

Parental leave

Retirement matching

Learning & development

Wellness stipend

Product access

AI tools access

Job summary

Scribd, Inc. is seeking a Staff Software Engineer for the Everand backend to shape the future of discovery and consumption across web and mobile. You will own backend design, reliability, and cross‑team collaboration with PM, design, and ML partners to drive scalable, observable systems.

The role emphasizes engineering excellence, mentorship, and a user‑first approach to improve reading/listening experiences. This position offers a flexible work model with in‑person collaboration as needed.

Qualifications

• Significant backend engineering experience with scaling distributed systems.
• Proficiency in Ruby, Scala, Go, or Python.
• Strong focus on reliability, observability, and SLOs.
• Proven technical leadership, mentoring, and large-scale migrations.
• Excellent cross-functional collaboration with PMs, design and ML partners.
• User-focused mindset shaping backend systems for Everand.

Responsibilities

• Set technical direction for the Everand backend: design docs, architecture reviews, and translating product intent into concrete backend design.
• Own backend reliability and platform health: staging, CI/CD, databases, queues, cost, and observability.
• Raise team capability through PR reviews, pairing, and setting a high bar on design, testing, and ops.
• Be the backend voice in cross-team planning and execution.
• Foster technical excellence while building scalable, resilient systems that move fast and reduce complexity.
• Modernize legacy systems and reduce technical debt to improve velocity and scale.
• Partner with Product, Design, Analytics, Web, Mobile, and ML to enable experimentation and a single source of truth.
• Champion a user-first mindset, tying decisions to the reader/listener experience.

Skills

Backend engineering

Distributed systems

Ruby

Scala

Go

Python

Reliability/Observability

Mentoring/leadership

Job description

Scribd, Inc. is seeking a Staff Software Engineer for the Everand backend to shape the future of discovery and consumption across web and mobile. You will own backend design, reliability, and cross‑team collaboration with PM, design, and ML partners to drive scalable, observable systems.

The role emphasizes engineering excellence, mentorship, and a user‑first approach to improve reading/listening experiences. This position offers a flexible work model with in‑person collaboration as needed.