Staff Software Engineer - Lead Distributed Systems at Scale (Remote)

Whatnot; United States; Hybrid; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health Insurance

Work From Home Support

Parental Leave

Retirement plans (401k)

Dogfood stipend

Job summary

Whatnot, a leading live commerce platform, is hiring Staff Software Engineers across multiple pillars. You will design and own large, distributed systems powering live auctions, payments, search, and recommendations.

You’ll lead initiatives and shape long-term architecture while mentoring engineers and driving rapid, high-impact delivery. You will collaborate with product, data, design, and leadership to align on technical direction, balance speed with quality, and scale our platform for

Qualifications

• 8+ years of full-time software engineering experience.
• Led large technical initiatives in fast-scaling environments.
• Experience designing and evolving distributed systems at scale.
• Strong foundation in backend and frontend development across multiple languages.
• Ability to act as technical lead without direct people management.
• Experience influencing architecture and technical strategy across teams.
• Excellent product instincts.
• Ability to operate effectively in ambiguity, defining problems clearly.
• Mentoring engineers and elevating engineering quality.

Responsibilities

• Lead the design and evolution of large distributed systems powering live auctions, payments, search, recommendations, trust systems, growth funnels, and more.
• Own ambiguous, high-leverage technical problems from inception to production — and set the long-term architectural direction.
• Act as the technical lead for major initiatives, driving alignment across multiple teams without formal management authority.
• Balance urgency and technical excellence, making principled trade-offs for rapid iteration and long-term scalability.
• Raise the engineering bar through design reviews, mentorship, and hands-on contributions to critical systems.
• Partner with leadership to identify high-impact investments for scaling reliability and performance.
• Help Whatnot scale through hypergrowth, ensuring system resilience as we expand globally.

Skills

Distributed systems design

Leadership of large initiatives

Backend and frontend development

Python

Elixir

JavaScript

Tools

Python

Elixir

JavaScript

Job description

Whatnot, a leading live commerce platform, is hiring Staff Software Engineers across multiple pillars. You will design and own large, distributed systems powering live auctions, payments, search, and recommendations.

You’ll lead initiatives and shape long-term architecture while mentoring engineers and driving rapid, high-impact delivery. You will collaborate with product, data, design, and leadership to align on technical direction, balance speed with quality, and scale our platform for