Senior Software Engineer (Python + Distributed systems)

Scribd Inc. is on a mission to advance human understanding. Our four products Scribd Slideshare Everand and Fable help billions of people across the globe move beyond access and into insight application and expertise.

Culture at Scribd Inc.

We support a culture where our employees can be real and be bold; where we debate and commit as we embrace plot twists; and where every employee is empowered to take action as we prioritize the customer.

We believe the best work happens when individual flexibility is balanced with meaningful community connection. Scribd Flex empowers employees to choose the workstyle and location that support their best performance while committing to intentional in-person moments that strengthen collaboration and culture. Occasional in-person attendance is required for all Scribd Inc. employees regardless of location.

So what are we looking for in new team members At Scribd Inc. we hire for GRIT. Traditionally defined as the intersection of passion and perseverance toward long-term goals GRIT reflects the mindset we expect from every employee. For us it also serves as a practical framework for how we work: setting and achieving Goals delivering Results within your role contributing Innovative ideas and solutions and strengthening the broader Team through collaboration and attitude.

This posting reflects an approved open position within the organization.

At Scribd (pronounced scribbed) our mission is to spark human curiosity. Join our team as we create a world of stories and knowledge democratize the exchange of ideas and information and empower collective expertise through our three products: Everand Scribd and Slideshare.

We support a culture where our employees can be real and be bold; where we debate and commit as we embrace plot twists; and where every employee is empowered to take action as we prioritize the customer.

We love collaborating and investing time in our Scribd community and we create intentional in-person moments with each other to build culture and connection. And it is through our flexible work benefit Scribd Flex that we enable employees in partnership with their manager to choose the work-style that best suits their individual needs and preferences.

About the team:

The ML Data Engineering team powers metadata extraction enrichment and content understanding across all Scribd brands. We process hundreds of millions of documents billions of images and deliver high-quality metadata to enable content discovery and trust for millions of users worldwide.

Our systems operate at massive scale supporting diverse datasets like user-generated content (UGC) ebooks audiobooks and more. We work at the intersection of machine learning data engineering and distributed systems collaborating closely with applied research and product teams to deploy scalable ML and LLM-powered solutions in production.

Role Overview:

Were seeking a Senior Software Engineer with deep experience building event-driven distributed and scalable systems in this role youll design and optimize large-scale data and service pipelines running on AWS supporting Scribds content enrichment and metadata systems. Youll 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.

Tech Stack:

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 teams 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:

• 7 years of professional software engineering experience with a focus on backend or distributed systems development.

• Strong proficiency in Python (5 years). Experience with Scala is a plus.

• Expertise in designing and architecting large-scale event-driven and distributed systems

• Strong cloud expertise with AWS services (ECS Lambda SQS SNS CloudWatch etc.).

• Experience with infrastructure-as-code tools like Terraform.

• Solid understanding of system performance profiling and optimization.

• Experience leading technical projects and mentoring engineers

• Bachelors degree in Computer Science or equivalent professional experience.

• Bonus: Familiarity with data processing frameworks (Spark Databricks) and workflow orchestration tools.

• Bonus: Experience integrating ML or LLM-based models into production systems.

At Scribd Inc. 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 the state of California the reasonably expected salary range is between $146500 minimum salary in our lowest geographic market within California to $228000 maximum salary in our highest geographic market within California.

In the United States outside of California the reasonably expected salary range is between $120000 minimum salary in our lowest US geographic market outside of California to $217000 maximum salary in our highest US geographic market outside of California.

In Canada the reasonably expected salary range is between $153000 CADminimum salary in our lowest geographic market to $202000 CADmaximum 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 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 Inc. can 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 at Scribd Inc.

• Scribd Flex (flexible work model)

• Comprehensive health dental and vision coverage

• Mental health support and disability coverage

• Generous paid time off including vacation sick time holidays winter break volunteer time and sabbaticals

• Paid parental leave and family support benefits

• Retirement matching and employee equity

• Learning and development programs and professional growth opportunities

• Wellness and home office stipends

• Complimentary access to the Scribd Inc. suite of products

• Enterprise access to leading AI tools

Get to Know Scribd Inc.
About Scribd Inc.
Life at Scribd Inc.

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 about the need for adjustments at any point in the interview process.

Scribd Inc. 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.

Required Experience:

Senior IC