Staff Backend Software Engineer (Level 6)

SNAP, Inc.; Santa Monica (CA); On-site; USD 150,000 - 190,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Parental leave up to 28 weeks

Comprehensive medical coverage

401(k) plan with company match

Well-being programs

Office perks and fitness discounts

Job summary

SNAP, Inc. is seeking engineers to design, implement, and operate our most critical services, spanning identity, friend graphs, and core persistence. You will collaborate across teams to translate product requirements into scalable, robust solutions.

We value accuracy, security, and performance as we build high-velocity, production-ready systems. Knowledge of distributed services and AI-enabled tooling is a strong plus for this role.

Qualifications

• Proven experience with backend services or distributed systems.
• Ability to leverage AI tools while auditing output for architecture.
• Strong coding practices and security awareness.

Responsibilities

• Design, implement, and operate scalable services across teams.
• Collaborate to understand product requirements and trade-offs.
• Evaluate and debug to ensure high-quality, production-ready code.
• Advocate for availability, scalability, and cost management.
• Use AI tools to accelerate development and maintain architectural integrity.

Skills

Backend services

Distributed systems

AI tools

Java

Python

C++

NoSQL

Kubernetes

AWS/GCP

Education

Bachelor's degree in computer science or equivalent

Tools

Kubernetes

AWS

GCP

Redis/Memcached

Job description

• Design, implement, and operate our most critical and scalable services - ranging from user identity services, friend graph, and our core persistence layer
• Work across teams to understand product requirements, evaluate trade-offs, and deliver the solutions needed to build innovative products
• You evaluate, appropriately test, and debug your work, striving for high quality
• Advocate for and apply best practices when it comes to availability, scalability, operational excellence, and cost management
• Utilize AI tools and high velocity engineering workflows to design and ship scalable services while upholding rigorous standards for code correctness, security, and production ready quality code

Benefits

• Up to 28 weeks of parental leave and return-to-work program
• Adoption, surrogacy, infertility, and fertility preservation benefits
• Backup child care coverage, center-based care support, & caregiver assistance
• Dependent Daycare Flexible Spending Account
• Services to support your path to parenthood & beyond - fertility support & family planning via Carrot, SNOO, Hinge Health
• Lactation rooms (based on office location) and breastmilk shipping coverage
• Short-term disability, long-term disability, basic life insurance, and AD&D insurance
• For Snap, employees taking care of loved ones with complex, chronic, or ongoing care needs (i.e. parent with Dementia, spouse with Cancer, child with Autism), your family can save time, money, & stress with Wellthy
• Comprehensive medical coverage, including PPO, HDHP with HSA, and HMO options
• Dental coverage, including orthodontia benefits
• Vision coverage, including frame and contact allowance and LASIK benefits
• Free membership to One Medical for primary and urgent healthcare services
• Business Travel Insurance
• Gym perks and discounts
• Team fitness classes and races
• Sports leagues
• Cooking and nutritional workshops
• Well-being reimbursement
• Unlimited access to virtual physical therapy with Anthem
• 15 sessions per year of mental health for you + dependents through Lyra
• Generous time off and leave programs. In the US, this includes the following:
• Up to 3 weeks (120 hours) of vacation time and 1 floating holiday for non-exempt team members
• 15 sick and safe days per year
• 12 paid holidays per year
• Social gatherings, team outings, and volunteering programs
• Speaker series, classes, and subscriptions to educational programs
• Meditation and yoga classes
• Snap Inc. provides a 401(k) plan that allows you to save on a pre-tax, Roth, and after-tax basis for your retirement (yes, we even have the Mega backdoor option!) Snap will also match 100% up to 3% of your contribution and then 50% on your 4th and 5th%
• Flexible Spending Accounts for healthcare, daycare and commuter
• Health Savings Account with employer contributions
• Rocket Lawyer memberships
• Financial education programs
• Snap exclusive discounts and perks
• Compensation packages that let you share in Snap’s long-term success!

Experience with backend services or distributed systemsProficiency in, or a strong aptitude for, leveraging AI tools to streamline development, paired with the critical judgment to audit generated output for architectural integrity, performance bottlenecks, and security risksAbility to collaborate and work well with othersExperience in at least one of the following areas:Cloud computing and storage systemsAdaptability in learning and applying evolving AI systems and tools to remain at the forefront of engineering trends and modern development practicesBachelor’s Degree in a relevant technical field such as computer science or equivalent years of practical work experienceYou understand the operational aspects of your system and may participate in incident or hotfix investigation and resolutionMachine learning and natural language processing toolsInfrastructure and large-scale system designExperience with distributed systemsLarge-scale microservices and distributed systemsProven track record of operating highly-available systems at significant scaleSecurityYou can independently execute on medium sized features, taking a few weeks and multiple PRs to complete1+ years of experience with technical leadership or acting as the domain-expert to a technical organization9+ years of post-Bachelor’s software development experience; or a Master’s degree in a technical field + 8+ year of post-grad software development experience; or a PhD in a related technical field + 5+ years of post-grad software development experienceNetworking and data storageExperience with Java, C++, and/or PythonExperience with NoSQL solutions, Memcache/Redis, Kubernetes, or Google/AWS services