Software Engineer, Search and Discovery Platform

Whatnot is seeking a Software Engineer to join their Search and Discovery Platform team. This role is pivotal in shaping the technical direction and designing a scalable discovery system. The engineer will work cross-functionally, making decisions on integrating retrieval, machine learning ranking, real-time processing, and content understanding to create personalized discovery experiences.

The Software Engineer will contribute to building services and infrastructure for advanced recommendation systems, ensuring a stable and low-latency discovery experience. They will collaborate with machine learning, platform, and product engineering teams to solve discovery problems and advance the technical approach to scalable recommendation systems.

Whatnot values individuals with a low ego, growth mindset, and high-impact drive. The ideal candidate should have experience building discovery backend and data systems at scale and be adept at both prototyping new ideas and building them for extreme scale.

What this role involves:

• Building services and infrastructure for recommendation systems.
• Creating a scalable and stable discovery experience.
• Partnering with machine learning, platform, and product engineering teams.
• Contributing scalable solutions across various serving stacks.
• Defining and advancing the technical approach to scalable recommendation systems.

Requirements:

• 5+ years of experience in software engineering.
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or related field.
• Experience in building and scaling platforms for high-volume applications.
• Experience in machine learning fields (e.g., Recommendations, Content Understanding, and Search).
• Expertise in designing and building scalable backend systems.
• Familiarity with cloud computing platforms (AWS or Google Cloud).
• Proficiency in a server-side programming language (preferably Python).

What Whatnot offers:

• Flexible Time off Policy and Company-wide Holidays
• Health Insurance options including Medical, Dental, Vision
• Work From Home Support
• Home office setup allowance
• Monthly allowance for cell phone and internet
• Monthly allowance for wellness
• Annual allowance towards Childcare
• Lifetime benefit for family planning, such as adoption or fertility expenses
• Retirement; 401k offering for Traditional and Roth accounts in the US (employer match up to 4% of base salary) and Pension plans internationally
• Monthly allowance to dogfood the app
• 16 weeks of paid parental leave + one month gradual return to work