Senior Backend Engineer (Python)

Senior Software Engineer

We're seeking a Senior Software Engineer with deep experience building event-driven, distributed, and scalable systems in Python. In this role, you'll design and optimize large-scale data and service pipelines running on AWS, supporting Scribd's content enrichment and metadata systems. You'll work closely with cross-functional teams to design reliable backend services that integrate machine learning models and LLM-based components when needed. This role offers the opportunity to work on cutting-edge generative AI and metadata enrichment problems at a truly global scale.

Our backend systems are primarily built in Python, leveraging AWS services such as Lambda, ECS, SQS, and ElastiCache for event-driven and distributed processing. We also use Airflow, Spark, Databricks, Terraform, and Datadog for orchestration, data processing, and observability.

Key Responsibilities :

• Provide technical leadership, mentorship, and guidance to engineers across the organization, driving secure coding best practices.
• Lead the design, implementation, and scaling of event-driven, distributed systems to extract, enrich, and process metadata from large-scale document and media datasets.
• Partner with Data Science, Infrastructure, ML Engineering, and Product teams to architect and deliver robust systems that balance scalability, high performance, and rapid iteration.
• Contribute to the team's engineering strategy, identifying gaps, proposing new initiatives, and improving existing frameworks.
• Build and maintain scalable APIs and backend services for high-throughput content processing.
• Leverage AWS services (ECS, Lambda, SQS, ElastiCache, CloudWatch) to design and deploy resilient, high-performance systems.
• Optimize and refactor existing backend systems for scalability, reliability, and performance.
• Ensure system health and data integrity through monitoring, observability, and automated testing.

Requirements :

At Scribd, your base pay is one part of your total compensation package and is determined within a range. Our pay ranges are based on the local cost of labor benchmarks for each specific role, level, and geographic location. San Francisco is our highest geographic market in the United States. In the state of California, the reasonably expected salary range is between $146,500 [minimum salary in our lowest geographic market within California] to $228,000 [maximum salary in our highest geographic market within California].

In the United States, outside of California, the reasonably expected salary range is between $120,000 [minimum salary in our lowest US geographic market outside of California] to $217,000 [maximum salary in our highest US geographic market outside of California].

In Canada, the reasonably expected salary range is between $153,000 CAD[minimum salary in our lowest geographic market] to $202,000 CAD[maximum salary in our highest geographic market].

We carefully consider a wide range of factors when determining compensation, including but not limited to experience; job-related skill sets; relevant education or training; and other business and organizational needs. The salary range listed is for the level at which this job has been scoped. In the event that you are considered for a different level, a higher or lower pay range would apply. This position is also eligible for a competitive equity ownership, and a comprehensive and generous benefits package.

Working at Scribd, Inc.

Are you currently based in a location where Scribd is able to employ you? Employees must have their primary residence in or near one of the following cities. This includes surrounding metro areas or locations within a typical commuting distance :

United States :

Atlanta | Austin | Boston | Dallas | Denver | Chicago | Houston | Jacksonville | Los Angeles | Miami | New York City | Phoenix | Portland | Sacramento | Salt Lake City | San Diego | San Francisco | Seattle | Washington D.C.

Canada :

Ottawa | Toronto | Vancouver

Mexico : Mexico City

Benefits, Perks, and Wellbeing at Scribd

We want our interview process to be accessible to everyone. You can inform us of any reasonable adjustments we can make to better accommodate your needs by emailing accommodations@scribd.com about the need for adjustments at any point in the interview process.

Scribd is committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, disability status, or any other characteristic protected by law. We encourage people of all backgrounds to apply, and believe that a diversity of perspectives and experiences create a foundation for the best ideas. Come join us in building something meaningful.