Skip to main content

Staff Software Engineer, Backend, Level 6

Posted today

snapMillbrae (CA)

SENIORITY

Lead

Apply (opens in a new tab)

About the role

Overview: As a Staff Backend Engineer at Snap, you will design, build, and operate our most scalable services—like identity and friend-graph systems—to enable billions of interactions. You’ll collaborate across teams to translate product needs into resilient, cost-conscious infrastructure. You’ll champion high-quality, secure production code and leverage AI tools to accelerate delivery. This role offers impact across Snap’s fast, privacy-focused platform and a chance to shape scalable systems at scale. Compensation / Benefits paid parental leave comprehensive medical coverage emotional and mental health support compensation with RSUs opportunity for long-term equity participation equal opportunity employer
Responsibilities: Design, implement, and operate critical, scalable backend services (identity, friend graph, core persistence) Collaborate with cross-functional teams to translate product requirements and trade-offs into solutions Champion availability, scalability, operational excellence, and cost management Evaluate, test, and debug code to ensure high quality and production readiness Leverage AI tools and rapid development workflows to design and ship robust services while auditing for architecture, performance, and security risks
Key requirements: Backend services or distributed systems experience Proven ability to operate highly-available, large-scale systems Ability to independently complete medium-sized features over weeks with multiple PRs Understanding of incident/hotfix resolution and operational aspects of systems Strong collaboration skills and teamwork Experience in large-scale microservices or distributed systems, cloud storage, security, and infrastructure design Experience with Java, C++, and/or Python; NoSQL, Memcache/Redis, Kubernetes, or cloud services (Google/AWS) Collaboration Adaptability Strong judgment and problem-solving Java, C++, Python NoSQL solutions Memcache/Redis

Before you apply

Applying takes about a minute. These four things decide how fast it moves after that.

Your profile is current

It's what we read first. Occupations, seniority and locations matter more than a long history.

Two examples you can talk through

Not a portfolio — just two pieces of work where you can explain the decisions and what you'd change.

A number in mind

What you're on now and what would make you move. We negotiate better when we know both.

Your notice period

Employers plan around it, and it's the question that stalls offers most often.

Once you apply, someone reads it and calls you before anything reaches the employer — usually within two working days.

More like this