Staff Software Engineer (Backend) - Fable Core

About Scribd, Inc.

Scribd, Inc. strives to enhance global understanding through its four main products: Scribd®, Slideshare®, Everand™, and Fable. These platforms empower billions worldwide by transforming access into deep insight, meaningful application, and expertise.

Work Culture

At Scribd, we foster a culture of authenticity and boldness where healthy debate and commitment coexist, embracing challenges along the way. Employees have the autonomy to choose their optimal work styles and locations under the Scribd Flex program, balanced with intentional in-person interactions to nourish teamwork and collaboration. Occasional onsite presence is mandatory for all employees.

We value "GRIT," a blend of passion and perseverance towards long-term goals, which shapes our goals, results-focus, innovative spirit, and strengthening of teamwork.

Role Overview

Join the Fable Core team, responsible for backend infrastructure and platform development for Fable—a social reading app serving over one million monthly active users, highly recognized in app stores. As a Staff Software Engineer, you will lead the technical strategy, oversee platform health and reliability, and collaborate cross-functionally to translate vague product ideas into robust backend systems. Your leadership will include incident management, mentorship, and raising technical standards.

Technical Environment

Our technology stack includes Python with Django, PostgreSQL, Kubernetes, Datadog, and cloud platforms such as GCP and AWS.

Key Responsibilities

• Define and communicate the technical vision for the Fable backend through comprehensive design documents and architecture reviews.
• Maintain platform reliability encompassing staging environments, continuous integration/delivery pipelines, databases, and observability metrics.
• Lead incident response processes end-to-end, facilitating thorough postmortem reviews and ensuring actionable follow-up.
• Serve as the Fable backend subject-matter expert in cross-team planning and integration efforts.
• Promote excellence via code review, mentoring peers, and enforcing high standards in design, testing, and operations.
• Continuously evolve the backend platform to accelerate safe and efficient product releases.
• Champion agentic engineering practices to enhance team workflows and effectiveness.

Candidate Profile

• Minimum of ten years’ backend engineering experience including substantial expertise in Python/Django and at least one additional technology such as Go, Node.js, Java, or Kotlin.
• Proven experience managing production systems on major cloud platforms, handling OLTP databases at scale, containerized services, queuing systems, and CI/CD pipelines.
• Demonstrated ownership of incidents from onset through resolution and retrospective action.
• Capability to author clear Technical Design Documents that gain trust among senior engineers and are accessible to product leadership.
• Strong collaboration skills with product managers, designers, and machine learning teams, prioritizing system outcomes over personal opinions.
• Pragmatic approach combined with strong system analysis skills to address root causes rather than symptoms.
• Practical experience applying agentic engineering principles and workflows in live production environments.

Preferred Qualifications

• Familiarity with subscription and entitlement management systems such as Stripe, RevenueCat, or app store billing platforms.
• Experience guiding a platform or infrastructure migration across environments (e.g., on-prem to cloud, AWS to GCP, monolith to microservices).
• Collaborative work alongside machine learning groups on recommendation or feed system features.

Compensation & Locations

Scribd offers competitive salaries based on local labor markets; for Canada, ranges from CAD 179,000 to 228,500 annually. Additional compensation includes equity ownership and a generous benefits package. Employment primarily occurs in specified cities in the US, Canada, and Mexico with a flexible work model requiring occasional office presence.

Benefits

• Flexible work arrangements (Scribd Flex)
• Extensive health, dental, and vision plans
• Mental health and disability coverage
• Paid time off including vacation, sick leave, holidays, volunteer days, and sabbaticals
• Paid parental leave and family support
• Retirement matching and equity participation
• Learning and career development opportunities
• Wellness and home office allowances
• Free access to Scribd’s product suite
• Enterprise access to advanced AI tools

Equal Opportunity & Accessibility

Scribd is devoted to inclusive hiring, encouraging applicants of all backgrounds to apply. Accommodations during the hiring process are available upon request. The company upholds equal employment opportunity regardless of protected characteristics.