Hybrid Staff Software Engineer, Backend

at Grindr

• Job title: Staff Software Engineer, Backend
• Job type: Full Time
• Experience level: Lead
• Salary: $152,000 - $203,000 per year
• Degree requirement: Bachelor's Degree
• Tech skills: AWS, Cloud, Distributed Systems, Java, Kafka, Kotlin, Microservices, Postgres, Redis, Scala
• Location requirements: Hybrid, Chicago, United States

About the role

• Staff Software Engineer building backend services for Grindr, supporting millions of users. Join a passionate team focused on innovation and engineering excellence in a hybrid environment.

Responsibilities

• You’ll join a backend team of 10+ engineers working on key features that support millions of active users daily.
• Leading projects and other engineers to implement new features and coordinate closely with the product and design teams
• Own the design and development of Grindr’s backend services in a stable and scalable microservices architecture
• Work with Product Managers, Designers, and other Engineers to refine feature design and functionality
• Optimize key pieces of Grindr's platform using tools like Redis, Postgres, and Kafka on AWS services
• Innovate by guiding data-driven decisions to adopt new technologies, architectures, and workflow
• Maintain high availability of the Grindr platform by leveraging distributed systems and infrastructure engineering, while playing a key role in optimizations, cost reduction, and incident management.
• Help guide and mentor team members through pairing sessions, code reviews, and architecture reviews.

Requirements

• 7+ years of experience as a Software Engineer and contributing to Backend Systems (Service APIs, Data Processing, Messaging Services)
• Experience designing and implementing large-scale systems for high load and data consistency in a microservice-based architecture
• Experience designing systems that make heavy and efficient use of Cloud Service, AWS preferred.
• Passionate about testing software and systems
• Deep understanding of concurrency concepts and trade-offs
• You love figuring things out and understanding how they work end-to-end
• Experience with the JVM and at least one JVM language such as Java, Kotlin, and Scala. Experience designing and product ionizing large-scale distributed systems

Benefits

• Health, Dental & Vision Full premium coverage for you. Partial coverage for dependents.
• Family Formation Up to $200,000 in fertility and family-building support, covering IVF, surrogacy, egg freezing, and adoption.
• Retirement: 401(k) with 6% match and immediate vesting.
• Compensation: Industry-competitive compensation, company bonus, and equity for every employee.
• Gender-Affirming Care : Industry-leading gender-affirming offerings with up to 90% cost coverage, access to Included Health, monthly stipends for HRT, and more.
• Time Off & Rest Flexible vacation policy. Two company-wide rest weeks per year.
• Other Benefits: Monthly stipends for cell phone, internet, wellness, food, and commuting, breakfast/lunch