Staff Software Engineer, Onboarding

Confirmed live yesterday High trust

Remote

Quick summary

Work type: Remote
Location: San Francisco, CA
Salary: $217,000–$303,000 / yr
Posted: 146 days ago
Freshness: Confirmed live yesterday
Nearby: 99+ roles within 25 mi

Market check

Salary context

Above market

How this pay compares to similar roles

Similar $212k

This role $260k

$124k $322k

below market most similar roles pay here above market

This role pays more than 92% of similar roles. Most pay $185,516–$237,509 — the blue band above. At the midpoint, this role pays about $260k versus about $212k for comparable roles.

Based on 240 similar postings.

Employer

About Reddit

Reddit is a social news aggregation and discussion platform where users share content, vote on posts, and engage in community conversations across thousands of interest-based forums called subreddits.

Reddit currently has 89 open roles on FindRole.

Listed pay typically runs $216,700–$303,000 across 89 roles with salary data.

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At a glance

TL;DR · Staff Software Engineer, Onboarding

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Staff Software Engineer, Onboarding joins the Onboarding team to shape the first experience users have after signing up. This role involves defining backend architecture for signal-collection systems, personalization pipelines, and experimentation infrastructure to create tailored first feeds. You will build and maintain partnerships with Relevance, Feeds, and Notifications teams to integrate ML-powered systems. Key responsibilities include establishing instrumentation for rigorous A/B testing, leading design reviews, and aligning cross-functional stakeholders on technical feasibility. The role requires expertise in ranking, recommendations, and personalization, specifically designing retrieval systems and inference pipelines for ML-heavy products like Two-Tower models. You will navigate growth-team ambiguity to balance velocity with reliability, ensuring high-scale distributed systems remain maintainable while delivering impactful product engineering that influences long-term user retention.

What does a Software Engineer earn in California?

Median $214500 from 1193 postings across 76 companies.

See salary data

Skills

Machine Learning Backend Architecture Personalization Pipelines Retrieval Systems Inference Pipelines Two-Tower Models Data Science Ranking Scalability Maintainability Instrumentation Product Engineering

What you'll do

Define and accelerate the backend architecture for signal-collection systems and personalization pipelines.
Build and maintain engineering partnerships with Relevance, Feeds, and Notifications teams.
Establish instrumentation and experimentation foundations to run rigorous A/B tests on growth levers.
Serve as the engineering voice in cross-functional partnerships with Product, Design, and Data Science.
Advocate for reliability, scalability, and maintainability across high-scale distributed systems.
Lead design reviews and establish engineering patterns for the broader organization.
Translate ML model outputs into high-impact product features for ranking and recommendations.

What we're looking for

At least 7 years of experience steering cross-team projects that solve tangible business problems.
Experience with ranking, recommendations, and personalization on ML-heavy products.
Ability to design backend architectures, retrieval systems, and inference pipelines for ML products.
Proven ability to mentor engineers and help the team work through complex problems effectively.
Experience with instrumentation and establishing foundations for rigorous A/B testing and experimentation.
Ability to distill complex technical trade-offs for diverse audiences, including executive stakeholders.
Ability to navigate ambiguity and maintain focus in a fast-paced growth engineering environment.
Ability to advocate for reliability, scalability, and maintainability in high-scale distributed systems.

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