Staff Software Engineer, Consumer Engineering
Staff backend engineer on Reddit's Consumer Engineering team, building and scaling the distributed systems and APIs behind user-facing features like feeds, recommendations, onboarding, growth, and monetization. Core stack includes Go or Python, GraphQL/REST/gRPC, and datastores like Redis, Cassandra, and PostgreSQL, with heavy use of A/B experimentation.
- Compensation
- $217K–$303K / yr
- Location
- Remote - United States
- Work setup
- Remote
- Seniority
- Staff
- Employment
- Contract
- Experience
- 7+ years
- Category
- Software engineering
- Posted
Skills
Must have
- 7+ years of hands-on backend development experience building and operating large-scale distributed serving systems in high-concurrency environments
- Proficiency in modern backend languages such as Go or Python (or Java, Kotlin, Rust, C++)
- Expertise in designing and maintaining scalable, maintainable APIs using GraphQL, REST, or gRPC for native mobile and web applications
- Experience with high-throughput caching layers and distributed datastores (e.g., Redis, Cassandra, PostgreSQL)
- Experience or interest in using AI-assisted engineering tools to accelerate development workflows
- Comfortable working alongside Data Scientists and PMs to design experiments, establish core performance metrics, and iterate quickly
- User-centric mindset with intuitive feel for product usability, interaction design, social dynamics, and user growth loops
- Self-directed, innovative, and comfortable navigating ambiguity in fast-paced product environments
- Outstanding communication skills with a track record of driving cross-functional alignment in fully remote or hybrid team environments
Full description
Reddit is a community of communities. It’s built on shared interests, passion, and trust, and is home to the most open and authentic conversations on the internet. Every day, Reddit users submit, vote, and comment on the topics they care most about. With 100,000+ active communities and approximately 130 million daily active unique visitors, Reddit is one of the internet’s largest sources of information. For more information, visit .
The Reddit Consumer Engineering organization builds and scales the products that Redditors use directly to discover content, participate in communities, and connect with others. Sitting at the intersection of large-scale distributed systems and core user journeys, Product Backend Engineers in Consumer Engineering partner directly with Product Managers, Designers, Data Scientists, ML Engineers, and Frontend Engineers to build, experiment with, and scale features that power how hundreds of millions of users discover, join, navigate, and engage with Reddit.
This centralized role hires across several high-impact consumer teams, including:
- Core Product & Feeds: Home Experience, Recommendations & Content Discovery, Content Contribution
- Community & Presence: Reddit Pro, Youth Experience & Teen Safety, Creator Tools
- Growth & Engagement: Authentication, Notifications, Social Sharing, SEO, Onboarding.
- Monetization & Conversion: Paid User Acquisition, Conversion Funnel Optimization
- Identity & Security: Account Management, Trust & Safety
What You’ll Do
- Cross-Functional Product Architecture: Partner closely with Product Management, Product Design, Data Science, and Client Engineers (iOS/Android/Web) to translate business and user needs into reliable, low-latency technical solutions.
- End-to-End Delivery: Own the full software lifecycle for major product initiatives from technical design docs and API contracts to development, testing, rollout, and observability.
- Metrics & Experimentation-Led Engineering: Design, build, and evaluate A/B experiments. Work with tools like BigQuery, HEX, or Firebase to analyze user behavior, conversion funnels, and retention loops to make data-backed engineering decisions.
- API & System Performance: Build and maintain scalable APIs (GraphQL, REST, gRPC) and distributed backend services optimized for client consumption and consumer UI performance.
- Technical Rigor & Modern Tooling: Establish engineering best practices, improve developer workflows, mentor teammates, and use modern, AI-integrated tools to ship high-quality products efficiently.