Software Engineer, Backend, Level 5

Snap Snap · Consumer · Palo Alto, CA +6

Backend Engineer at Snap focused on designing, implementing, and operating critical and scalable services. The role involves working across teams, evaluating trade-offs, and delivering solutions for innovative products. A key aspect is the utilization of AI tools to streamline development, with a strong emphasis on code correctness, security, and production-ready quality. Experience with distributed systems, cloud computing, and backend services is required, along with proficiency in languages like Java, C++, or Python. The role also requires understanding operational aspects and potentially participating in incident resolution. Experience with ML/NLP is listed as a plus.

What you'd actually do

  1. Design, implement, and operate our most critical and scalable services - ranging from user identity services, friend graph, and our core persistence layer
  2. Work across teams to understand product requirements, evaluate trade-offs, and deliver the solutions needed to build innovative products
  3. You evaluate, appropriately test, and debug your work, striving for high quality
  4. Advocate for and apply best practices when it comes to availability, scalability, operational excellence, and cost management
  5. Utilize AI tools and high velocity engineering workflows to design and ship scalable services while upholding rigorous standards for code correctness, security, and production ready quality code

Skills

Required

  • Experience with backend services or distributed systems
  • Experience with distributed systems
  • Experience with Java, C++, and/or Python
  • Experience with NoSQL solutions, Memcache/Redis, Kubernetes, or Google/AWS services
  • Ability to collaborate and work well with others

Nice to have

  • Large-scale microservices and distributed systems
  • Cloud computing and storage systems
  • Infrastructure and large-scale system design
  • Security
  • Networking and data storage
  • Machine learning and natural language processing
  • Tools
  • Proven track record of operating highly-available systems at significant scale
  • You can independently execute on medium sized features, taking a few weeks and multiple PRs to complete
  • You understand the operational aspects of your system and may participate in incident or hotfix investigation and resolution
  • Proficiency in, or a strong aptitude for, leveraging AI tools to streamline development, paired with the critical judgment to audit generated output for architectural integrity, performance bottlenecks, and security risks.
  • Adaptability in learning and applying evolving AI systems and tools to remain at the forefront of engineering trends and modern development practices

What the JD emphasized

  • Utilize AI tools and high velocity engineering workflows to design and ship scalable services while upholding rigorous standards for code correctness, security, and production ready quality code
  • Proficiency in, or a strong aptitude for, leveraging AI tools to streamline development, paired with the critical judgment to audit generated output for architectural integrity, performance bottlenecks, and security risks.
  • Adaptability in learning and applying evolving AI systems and tools to remain at the forefront of engineering trends and modern development practices