Staff Software Engineer

News Corp

Austin (TX)

Hybrid

USD 140,000 - 210,000

Full time

2 days ago

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Benefits offered by this job

Paid Holidays

Flexible Time Off

401(k) plan with company match

Tuition Reimbursement

Volunteer Time Off

Snacks & refreshments in office

Job summary

Realtor.com is seeking a Staff Backend Software Engineer for the Video Platform team in Austin, TX. You will lead design and delivery of complex backend systems, shaping a new AI-driven video experience for listing walkthroughs.

You’ll mentor peers, prototype new models, and implement scalable APIs and data models across a graph-based pipeline. You will work with Product Managers, Designers, Analysts, and Engineers, using Java/Python and modern tools, with in-person collaboration and a strong

Qualifications

5+ years of professional software development experience and 2+ years contributing to system architecture and design.
Backend expertise in Java and Python; TypeScript, Rust or Go a plus; strong Spring Boot experience.
Experience with GraphQL as a service author and federation is a plus.
Solid SQL and relational modeling (Postgres, Aurora) with NoSQL exposure (DynamoDB) and caching (Redis).
Hands-on AWS across S3, SQS, SNS, RDS and containerized workloads on EKS or ECS; CI/CD and IaC familiarity.
Observability focus: monitoring, logging, tracing; AI model integration in production; good design docs.

Responsibilities

Lead the design and delivery of complex parts of the problem space in your squad with unsettled requirements.
Provide guidance on system architecture and design across GraphQL service and video generation pipeline.
Develop high-quality, scalable API/data model and asynchronous video publishing workloads.
Collaborate with Product Managers, Designers, Analysts, and Engineers in squads.
Mentor engineers and help them grow; prototype new models and tools for innovations.
Be self-directed, take initiative, and drive toward solutions with minimal guidance.

Skills

Backend engineering

Distributed systems

Java

Python

TypeScript

Rust

Spring Boot

SQL

NoSQL

AWS

GraphQL

Data modeling

Observability

AI integration

communication

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science

Tools

GraphQL

Postgres

Aurora

DynamoDB

Redis

SQS

SNS

RDS

EKS

Docker

Job description

Staff Software Engineer

Location: Austin, TX, United States

Category: Technology

Job ID: 3249

Description

At Realtor.com, we are building products that empower millions of home buyers, renters, and real estate professionals. Our mission is to simplify the home buying/selling process and help more people achieve the dream of home ownership. We are looking for a collaborative and customer-focused Senior Backend Software Engineer to join our Video Platform team. This team is building a new way for people to experience homes, using generative AI to turn listing photos into cinematic property walkthroughs and placing them in a feed consumers scroll to explore homes and neighborhoods the way they explore everything else. It is a new surface for the industry and it is early, so the engineers who join now will shape what it becomes.

We believe in leveraging the best tools to solve problems faster. You will be expected to use AI coding assistants and LLMs proficiently in your daily workflow, and to apply the critical judgment needed to verify their output for security, performance, and accuracy, so your time goes to high-impact engineering work.

What You’ll Do:

Lead the design and delivery of the complex parts of the problem space in your squad, where the requirements are not settled yet.
Provide guidance to the team on system architecture and design across our GraphQL service and the video generation pipeline.
Develop solutions that are high quality, scalable, and reliable, from the API and data model through the asynchronous jobs that generate and publish video.
Work collaboratively in squads composed of Product Managers, Designers, Analysts, and Engineers.
Mentor engineers on the team and help them grow.
Investigate and prototype new models, tools, and techniques to introduce new innovations, in a space where the state of the art changes every few months.
Be self-directed, take initiative, and drive toward solutions with little guidance.

What You'll Bring:

5+ years of professional software development experience and 2+ years of experience contributing to system architecture and design.
Backend Expertise: Proficiency in modern distributed languages, primarily Java and Python here, with TypeScript, Rust, or Go a plus. Solid Spring Boot experience, and enough Python to contribute to the pipeline rather than just read it.
API Design: Experience with GraphQL as a service author, not only a consumer. Federation experience is a plus.
Data Modeling: Solid SQL and relational modeling (e.g., Postgres, Aurora), including schema migrations, with exposure to NoSQL stores (e.g., DynamoDB) and caching (e.g., Redis).
Cloud & Infrastructure: Hands-on AWS experience across S3, SQS, SNS, RDS, and containerized workloads on EKS or 1 ECS, with familiarity with CI/CD and infrastructure as code.
Observability Mindset: A focus on maintaining system health through monitoring, logging, and tracing.
AI Interest: Curiosity or experience integrating generative models into production. Prior work with prompt design, model output validation, or media processing is a plus, but rigor and curiosity matter more than a specific vendor on your resume.
Clear written communication. A lot of the coordination on this platform happens through design notes and contract documents rather than meetings.
Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, a related field, or equivalent professional experience.

How We Work:

We balance creativity and innovation on a foundation of in-person collaboration. For most roles, our employees work four or more days in our offices, where they have the opportunity to collaborate in-person, adding richness to our culture and knitting us closer together.

How We Reward You:

Realtor.com is committed to investing in the health and wellbeing of our employees and their families. Our benefits programs include, but are not limited to:

Inclusive and Competitive medical, Rx, dental, and vision coverage