Senior Backend Engineer

Yahoo serves as a trusted guide for hundreds of millions of people globally, helping them achieve their goals online through our portfolio of iconic products. For advertisers, Yahoo Advertising offers omnichannel solutions and powerful data to engage with our brands and deliver results.

A Little About Us

Commerce is a fast-growing business for Yahoo. We are expanding our US Commerce Catalog team to help consumers worldwide save time and money. We build and scale highly performant, reliable, and secure backend platforms, APIs, and systems that power diverse commercial experiences. As we enter the next phase of growth, we are seeking senior technical leaders who can combine traditional engineering excellence with modern, AI-augmented workflows.

A Lot About You

As a Senior Backend Engineer, you are a technical cornerstone of the team. You don't just write code; you design systems that scale and lead by example. You are a self-starter who thrives in dynamic environments and possesses the strategic mindset to prioritize long-term architectural health over short-term fixes. You are an early adopter of technology, a mentor to others, and a champion of operational excellence.

Your Focus & Impact

• Architectural Leadership: Lead the design and execution of complex, distributed backend systems. You will be responsible for ensuring systems are scalable, fault-tolerant, and secure.

• AI-Accelerated Engineering: Actively integrate and champion the use of AI tools (e.g., GitHub Copilot, Cursor, LLMs) to accelerate the development lifecycle—from rapid prototyping and automated unit testing to code refactoring and documentation.

• DevOps & Operational Ownership: Embrace the "You Build It, You Run It" philosophy. You will take ownership of the full lifecycle of your services, ensuring high observability, robust CI/CD pipelines, and proactive system health management.

• Technical Mentorship: Elevate the engineering bar by conducting deep-dive design reviews, providing insightful code feedback, and mentoring junior/mid-level engineers on best practices.

• Collaborative Innovation: Work seamlessly with Product Managers and Architects to translate ambiguous business passions into concrete technical roadmaps.

Minimum Qualifications

• Experience: BS/M.S. in Computer Science (or equivalent) and 8+ years of professional experience in backend development.

• Technical Depth: Expert-level proficiency in at least one general-purpose programming language (Java preferred, Python, or Scala).

• System Design: Proven track record of building and maintaining production-grade, large-scale distributed systems and microservices.

• AI Proficiency: Demonstrated ability to leverage AI-assisted coding tools to increase development velocity and improve code quality.

• DevOps Mindset: Strong experience with containerization (Docker/Kubernetes), CI/CD automation, and cloud-native infrastructure (AWS/GCP).

• Computer Science Fundamentals: Mastery of algorithms, data structures, and database design (SQL and NoSQL).

• Communication: Excellent analytical, structured thinking, and interpersonal skills to lead cross-functional initiatives. Fluent in English conversation. 

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Preferred Qualifications

• Java Expertise: Deep internal knowledge of the JVM, multi-threading, and performance tuning.

• Cloud Architecture: Hands-on experience with AWS/GCP services (EC2, Lambda, DynamoDB, RDS) and Infrastructure as Code (Terraform/CloudFormation).

• Observability: Proficiency in monitoring and logging stacks (e.g., Prometheus, Splunk).

• Big Data Ecosystem: Familiarity with modern data processing technologies like Hadoop, HBase, Spark, or Kafka.

• Agile Catalyst: Experience driving Agile methodologies and improving DORA metrics (Deployment Frequency, Lead Time, etc.) within a team.

Yahoo is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to, and will not be discriminated against based on age, race, gender, color, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, veteran status, disability or any other protected category. Yahoo will consider for employment qualified applicants with criminal histories in a manner consistent with applicable law. Yahoo is dedicated to providing an accessible environment for all candidates during the application process and for employees during their employment. If you need accessibility assistance and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability, please submit a request via the Accommodation Request Form ) or call Requests and calls received for non-disability related issues, such as following up on an application, will not receive a response.

Yahoo has a high degree of flexibility around employee location and hybrid working. In fact, our flexible-hybrid approach to work is one of the things our employees rave about. Most roles don't require specific regular patterns of in-person office attendance. If you join Yahoo, you may be asked to attend (or travel to attend) on-site work sessions, team-building, or other in-person events. When these occur, you'll be given notice to make arrangements. 

If you're curious about how this factors into this role, please discuss with the recruiter.

Currently work for Yahoo? Please apply on our internal career site.

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