Staff Software Engineer (Backend) - Everand Core

About Scribd, Inc.

Scribd, Inc. aims to enhance human understanding worldwide through its four main platforms: Scribd®, Slideshare®, Everand™, and Fable. We empower billions to transition from mere access to deep insight, application, and expertise.

Our company culture encourages authenticity and courage, values debate and commitment, embraces unexpected challenges, and prioritizes customer-centric action. We balance personal flexibility with meaningful community engagement through Scribd Flex, enabling employees to select workstyles and locations that optimize their performance, combined with required occasional in-person meetings to strengthen collaboration and culture.

We prioritize individuals with "GRIT": a blend of passion and perseverance toward sustained objectives. This mindset frames our work through setting goals, achieving role-specific results, encouraging innovation, and fostering collaboration and positive team spirit.

Role Overview

As a Staff Software Engineer on the Everand Core team based in Vancouver, you will shape how readers discover, organize, and enjoy books by owning the backend platform powering Everand's web and mobile products. You will oversee systems supporting experimentation, discoverability, personalization, and core content consumption, working closely with engineers, designers, and product stakeholders to align technical efforts with user needs and platform capabilities.

This role emphasizes building high-performance, reliable, scalable, and maintainable systems with a culture of quality, thoughtful design, and continuous enhancement rather than quick fixes.

Key Responsibilities

• Define and steer technical direction for the Everand backend, including authoring and sharing design documents and leading architecture reviews.
• Manage backend reliability and platform health aspects such as staging environments, CI/CD pipelines, database management, queues, cost optimization, and system observability.
• Elevate team quality standards through code reviews, mentorship, pairing, and advocating for strong design, testing, and operational excellence.
• Represent Everand backend interests in cross-team planning and facilitate cross-functional collaboration.
• Promote technical excellence by designing scalable, resilient, and observable systems, simplifying complexity and enabling fast, confident delivery.
• Modernize legacy systems, reduce technical debt, and enhance development velocity and scalability.
• Collaborate with Product, Design, Analytics, and Engineering teams (Web, Mobile, ML) to develop backend systems that support experimentation and provide unified data sources, using metrics and telemetry to inform decisions.
• Maintain a user-first approach ensuring backend decisions improve the reading and listening experience.

Candidate Profile

• Extensive backend engineering experience with demonstrated success in building and scaling distributed systems.
• Proficient in writing clean, maintainable, and secure code in at least one modern backend language such as Ruby (preferred), Scala, Go, or Python.
• Strong focus on reliability and observability including defining SLOs, implementing monitoring and alerting, and troubleshooting distributed systems.
• Proven technical leadership in setting architecture, mentoring engineers, and managing large-scale migrations or system upgrades.
• Effective in multidisciplinary collaboration with product managers, designers, and machine learning partners, emphasizing system outcomes over personal correctness.
• Passionate about mentoring, sharing knowledge, and contributing to engineering culture through cross-team initiatives and architectural governance.
• Empathetic toward users, understanding the impact of Everand and translating this into backend solutions.

Additional Qualifications (Helpful)

• Strong coding skills specifically in Ruby.
• Experience enhancing large-scale systems in terms of reliability, latency, or throughput.
• Background working with machine learning teams on recommendation or feed systems.
• Familiarity with experimentation or feature-flagging platforms.

Work Location and Flexible Work Model

The position is onsite in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, with occasional in-person attendance required to foster collaboration. Alternative locations across Canada and some U.S. cities are recognized for employment eligibility.

Compensation and Benefits

Salary ranges for this role are market-based and vary by geography. For Canada, the expected salary range is between 179000 and 225000 CAD annually. Total compensation also includes equity ownership and a comprehensive benefits package.

• Flexible work arrangements through Scribd Flex
• Full health, dental, and vision coverage
• Mental health support and disability benefits
• Generous paid time off including vacations, sick leave, holidays, and sabbaticals
• Paid parental leave and family support benefits
• Retirement matching plans and employee equity options
• Continuous learning opportunities and professional development
• Wellness and home office stipends
• Access to Scribd product suite and enterprise AI tools

Diversity and Inclusion

Scribd, Inc. is an equal opportunity employer dedicated to fostering diversity and inclusion. We welcome applicants from all backgrounds and ensure accessibility during the interview process. Personal information is handled in accordance with our Employee and Applicant Privacy Policy.