Staff Software Engineer, Fulfillment Expansion & AI

Whatnot; Seattle (WA); Hybrid; USD 180,000 - 260,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Generous holiday & time off policy

Health Insurance (Medical, Dental, Vis

Work From Home Support

Home office setup allowance

Monthly cell phone & internet stipend

Parental leave

401k with employer match

Dogfooding budget

Job summary

Whatnot is seeking a Staff Software Engineer for Fulfillment Expansion to tackle complex, global-scale problems. You will own end‑to‑end development, collaborating with Product, Design, and Data Science to deliver scalable solutions that move our buyer/seller experience forward.

You will guide technical direction, mentor engineers, and apply AI thoughtfully to improve quality and speed while maintaining high standards.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science or related field or equivalent work experience.
• 8+ years of full‑time software engineering experience, including building and operating large‑scale distributed systems in production.
• Strong communication skills and a track record of leading substantial technical initiatives across teams, defining problems clearly, aligning partners, and shipping solutions through ambiguity.
• Excellent product instincts. You prioritize solving user problems rather than focusing purely on technical perfection.
• Demonstrated experience modeling complex technical domains and building abstractions that accelerate product development.
• Ability to take ownership of an ambiguous area, define it, and then drive impact.
• Ability to flexibly work across multiple workstreams, thriving in a fast‑paced environment.
• A commitment to hands‑on engineering, with the judgment to write code, document architectural decisions, and drive alignment when needed.
• Experience mentoring engineers and improving the quality of designs, code, and operational practices.

Responsibilities

• Partner closely with Product, Design, Data Science, and end users to build scalable and efficient solutions to a wide range of user and business problems.
• Own your work end‑to‑end, from ideation and architecture all the way through to monitoring, observability, on‑call, and experiment analysis.
• Design complex systems at the interface between the digital and the physical worlds, which help our sellers scale and help Whatnot build a great business.
• Set technical direction for Fulfillment and influence roadmaps across partner teams, using data and product outcomes to guide decisions.
• Use AI thoughtfully in day‑to‑day engineering work to improve quality, learning speed, debugging, and execution, while keeping a strong independent bar for correctness and risk judgment.
• Raise the engineering bar through hands‑on contributions, design and code reviews, and mentorship.

Skills

Distributed systems

Leadership

Communication

Architectural design

Mentorship

Education

Bachelor's degree in CS or related field

Job description

Whatnot is seeking a Staff Software Engineer for Fulfillment Expansion to tackle complex, global-scale problems. You will own end‑to‑end development, collaborating with Product, Design, and Data Science to deliver scalable solutions that move our buyer/seller experience forward.

You will guide technical direction, mentor engineers, and apply AI thoughtfully to improve quality and speed while maintaining high standards.