This role is ideal for a senior-level backend engineer (5+ years of experience) who thrives in high-growth startup environments. While the listing is categorize
Work type: onsite
Location: San Francisco, CA | Los Angeles, CA | Seattle, WA | New York, NY
Salary: $195,000 – $230,000/yr
Type: Full-time
This role is ideal for a senior-level backend engineer (5+ years of experience) who thrives in high-growth startup environments. While the listing is categorized as mid-level, the responsibilities—leading end-to-end solutions, building AI-powered automations, and scaling infrastructure—require a "Lead" mindset. Proficiency in Python, Elixir, or Postgres is a significant advantage. The compensation is highly competitive ($195k – $230k) and comes with a robust benefits package, including a 4% 401k match, childcare allowances, and "dogfooding" credits to shop on the platform. Although the team is "remote co-located," you must live within commuting distance of their hubs in SF, LA, Seattle, or NYC for in-person collaboration. **You might be a good fit if you:** * Have a track record of scaling backend systems that handle high transaction volumes (thousands of issues per hour). * Enjoy a "full ownership" culture where you move fast from initial design to production. * Are interested in applying AI and automation to solve complex logistics and customer support challenges. * Prefer a hybrid work style that balances home office flexibility with regular in-person problem-solving.
## 🚀 Join the Future of Commerce with Whatnot!
Whatnot is the largest livestream shopping platform in North America and Europe to buy, sell, and discover the things you love. Whether it's trading cards, fashion, electronics, or live plants, our sellers are building real businesses across hundreds of categories. We're building live commerce at a scale that's never been done in the West, and there's no playbook to copy. The people here are shaping how an entirely new industry develops.
As a remote co-located team, we're inspired by our [values](https://www.whatnot.com/careers) and anchored in hubs across the US, UK, Ireland, Poland, Germany, and Australia. We move fast, stay close to our users, and focus on the work that drives the most impact.
We're one of the [fastest growing marketplaces](https://a16z.com/marketplace-100/) and were recently named the [#1 Best Startup Employer in America](http://google.com/search?q=%231+forbes+startup+employer&oq=%231+forbes+startup+employer&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIGCAEQRRg9MgYIAhBFGD0yBggDEEUYQDIGCAQQRRhAMgYIBRBFGEDSAQg1NzM0ajBqMagCALACAA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8) by Forbes. Check out the latest Whatnot updates on our [news](https://blog.teamwhatnot.com/) and [engineering blogs](https://medium.com/whatnot-engineering) and join us as we enable anyone to turn their passion into a business and bring people together through commerce.
## 💻 Role
We’re looking for a Lead Backend Engineer to join the Customer Experience Platform team and help us build a world-class Customer Support platform. With Whatnot’s rapid growth comes a high volume of complex support needs—spanning technical, purchasing, and logistics issues for both buyers and sellers. Our team is responsible for resolving them quickly, reliably, and with high customer satisfaction.
As a member of the team, you’ll build new user-facing experiences, scale internal infrastructure, and design intelligent AI-powered automations to help us solve thousands of customer issues per hour.
You’ll lead solutions end to end. You’ll translate ambiguous business problems into clear technical solutions and drive delivery and experimentation. Your role will involve creative problem-solving to balance development speed, product impact, and technical excellence.
We offer flexibility to work from home or from one of our global office hubs, and we value in-person time for planning, problem-solving, and connection. Team members in this role must live within commuting distance of our Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco or Seattle hub.
## 👋 You
Curious about who thrives at Whatnot? We’ve found that low ego and a growth mindset, while leaning into action, details, and impact goes a long way here.
As our next Backend Engineer, you should have 5+ years of full-time software engineering experience in high growth startups, plus:
## 💛 EOE
Whatnot is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer. We value diversity, and we do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, parental status, disability status, or any other status protected by local law. We believe that our work is better and our company culture is improved when we encourage, support, and respect the different skills and experiences represented within our workforce.