Senior Backend Software Engineer

Location: United States of America

Time Type: Full time

Job Description

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

Yahoo Search powers experiences used by millions of users globally every day. Our Search Platform team builds and operates critical infrastructure that powers Search reliability, scalability, security, and operational efficiency across the Search ecosystem.

We are a small but highly impactful engineering team responsible for foundational systems across the Search stack, including Search edge infrastructure, middleware orchestration systems, configuration management platforms, and internal operational tooling.

Our systems run on AWS cloud infrastructure with Kubernetes-based deployments, requiring strong focus on distributed systems engineering, operational excellence, reliability, and low-latency performance.

We are looking for engineers who enjoy solving large-scale infrastructure challenges, operating mission-critical systems, and building highly scalable backend platforms.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and operate highly scalable backend systems and infrastructure that power critical Search platform services.

• Develop and maintain Search edge infrastructure responsible for request validation, traffic routing, origin mapping, traffic analysis, bot detection, and platform security.

• Improve system scalability, reliability, latency, observability, and operational efficiency across large-scale distributed systems.

• Operate production services in AWS and Kubernetes environments, including monitoring, debugging, incident response, deployment automation, and performance optimization.

• Explore and apply AI-assisted development workflows to improve engineering efficiency, automation, and operational effectiveness.

• Contribute to CI/CD pipelines, infrastructure automation, and developer productivity improvements.

• Collaborate cross-functionally with Search, Product, Infrastructure, Editorial, and Operations teams to deliver scalable platform solutions.

• Participate in technical design discussions, architecture reviews, and continuous platform improvements.

• Collaborate with and provide technical expertise to team members across different components and technology stacks within the Search platform.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science or a related field; or equivalent experience. 

• 5+ years of professional experience building large-scale, highly scalable backend systems.

• Strong programming skills in one or more of the following languages: C++, Python, or Go. Experience with Java or Rust is a plus.

• Experience designing, building, and operating highly scalable distributed backend systems.

• Strong understanding of microservices, cloud-native architectures, and Kubernetes-based deployments in AWS environments. Experience with Google Cloud Platform (GCP) is a plus.

• Experience with observability, monitoring, debugging, incident response, and production operations for large-scale services.

• Familiarity with CI/CD systems, automation tooling, and modern software development practices.

• Strong problem-solving skills and the ability to work effectively in collaborative engineering environments.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience working on edge infrastructure, API gateways, reverse proxies, traffic routing, or high-performance networking systems.

• Experience building low-latency, high-QPS distributed systems at scale.

• Experience with traffic analysis, bot detection, request filtering, or platform security systems.

• Experience with Kubernetes, containerized workloads, and cloud-native infrastructure tooling.

• Experience with applying AI-assisted tools and workflows to software engineering, troubleshooting, and infrastructure operations.

The material job duties and responsibilities of this role include those listed above as well as adhering to Yahoo policies; exercising sound judgment; working effectively, safely and inclusively with others; exhibiting trustworthiness and meeting expectations; and safeguarding business operations and brand integrity.

At Yahoo, we offer flexible hybrid work options that our employees love! While most roles don’t require regular office attendance, you may occasionally be asked to attend in-person events or team sessions. You’ll always get notice to make arrangements. Your recruiter will let you know if a specific job requires regular attendance at a Yahoo office or facility. If you have any questions about how this applies to the role, just ask the recruiter!

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 (www.yahooinc.com/careers/contact-us.html) or call +1.866.772.3182. Requests and calls received for non-disability related issues, such as following up on an application, will not receive a response.

We believe that a diverse and inclusive workplace strengthens Yahoo and deepens our relationships. When you support everyone to be their best selves, they spark discovery, innovation and creativity. Among other efforts, our 11 employee resource groups (ERGs) enhance a culture of belonging with programs, events and fellowship that help educate, support and create a workplace where all feel welcome.

The compensation for this position ranges from $128,250.00 - $266,875.00/yr and will vary depending on factors such as your location, skills and experience.The compensation package may also include incentive compensation opportunities in the form of discretionary annual bonus or commissions. Our comprehensive benefits include healthcare, a great 401k, backup childcare, education stipends and much (much) more.

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