Staff Backend Engineer: Scalable, Observability‑Driven Systems

Scribd, Inc.; Chicago (IL); Hybrid; USD 141,000 - 242,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Scribd Flex (flexible work model)

Comprehensive health, dental, and vis­

Mental health support and disability

Generous paid time off (vacation, sick

Parental leave and family support

Retirement matching and equity

Learning and development programs

Wellness and home office stipends

Complimentary access to Scribd suite

Enterprise access to AI tools

Job summary

Scribd, Inc. is seeking a Staff Software Engineer for the Everand Core team to shape the backend powering Everand's web and mobile experiences. You will focus on discoverability, personalization, and core consumption journeys.

You will own backend reliability, socialize design docs, drive architecture reviews, and collaborate with search, recommendations, web, mobile, and ML partners to deliver scalable, observable systems. We value clean, maintainable code and user‑first decisions.

Qualifications

• Extensive backend engineering experience building and scaling distributed systems.
• Proficient in one or more modern backend languages (Ruby, Scala, Go, Python).
• Strong focus on reliability, observability, and defining SLOs, metrics, and alerts.
• Proven track record of technical leadership, mentoring, and large migrations.

Responsibilities

• Set technical direction for the Everand backend: design docs, architecture reviews, turning product intent into backend design.
• Own backend reliability and platform health, including staging, CI/CD, databases, queues, cost, and observability.
• Mentor engineers, review PRs, pair programming, raise design and ops bar.
• Be the Everand backend voice in cross-team planning and cross-functional execution.
• Foster a culture of technical excellence for scalable, resilient, observable systems.
• Modernize legacy systems and reduce technical debt to improve velocity and scalability.
• Collaborate with Product, Design, Analytics, Web, Mobile, and ML engineers to support experimentation and a single source of truth, using data and telemetry.
• Champion user-first mindset to enhance the reading and listening experiences.

Skills

Ruby

Scala

Go

Python

Job description

Scribd, Inc. is seeking a Staff Software Engineer for the Everand Core team to shape the backend powering Everand's web and mobile experiences. You will focus on discoverability, personalization, and core consumption journeys.

You will own backend reliability, socialize design docs, drive architecture reviews, and collaborate with search, recommendations, web, mobile, and ML partners to deliver scalable, observable systems. We value clean, maintainable code and user‑first decisions.