Senior Backend Engineer (Python) - Content Understanding

About the Company

Scribd, Inc. is focused on helping people move from simple access to real understanding. Its product family includes Scribd, Slideshare, Everand, and Fable, which collectively support discovery, application, and deeper expertise for users around the world.

Team Overview

The ML Content Understanding group builds the systems that extract, enhance, and structure metadata across Scribd’s brands. The team handles extremely large volumes of documents and images, creating trustworthy metadata that improves content discovery for millions of users worldwide. Its work sits at the intersection of machine learning, data engineering, and distributed systems, with close collaboration across applied research and product teams to ship scalable ML and LLM-powered solutions.

Role Summary

This senior engineering role is centered on designing and improving Python-based, event-driven, distributed, and highly scalable backend systems. The position focuses on large-scale data and service pipelines on AWS that support content enrichment and metadata workflows. The engineer will also partner with cross-functional teams to build dependable backend services that can integrate machine learning and LLM-driven components where needed.

Work Culture and Operating Model

Scribd, Inc. emphasizes a culture of candor, bold thinking, commitment after debate, customer focus, and empowered execution. The company uses a flexible working model called Scribd Flex, which allows employees to choose a work style and location that help them perform well while still maintaining regular in-person connection. Occasional in-person attendance is required for all employees, regardless of location.

Key Responsibilities

• Act as a technical leader by coaching and supporting engineers while promoting secure coding practices.
• Own the design, build-out, and scaling of event-driven distributed systems for extracting, enriching, and processing metadata from large document and media collections.
• Work with Data Science, Infrastructure, ML Engineering, and Product teams to create systems that balance scale, speed, and delivery agility.
• Help shape engineering direction by spotting gaps, recommending new initiatives, and strengthening current frameworks.
• Develop and support scalable APIs and backend services for high-volume content processing.
• Use AWS tooling such as ECS, Lambda, SQS, ElastiCache, and CloudWatch to create resilient, high-performance solutions.
• Improve existing backend platforms through optimization, refactoring, and reliability enhancements.
• Protect system health and data accuracy through monitoring, observability, and automated testing.

Requirements

• At least 7 years of professional software engineering experience, with emphasis on backend or distributed systems work.
• Strong Python expertise, including 5 or more years of hands-on use; Scala knowledge is considered an advantage.
• Deep experience designing large-scale event-driven and distributed architectures.
• Solid AWS background, including ECS, Lambda, SQS, SNS, CloudWatch, and related services.
• Practical experience with infrastructure-as-code tools such as Terraform.
• Good understanding of performance tuning, profiling, and system optimization.
• Track record of leading technical initiatives and mentoring other engineers.
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or equivalent professional experience.
• Nice to have: experience with Spark, Databricks, and workflow orchestration tools.
• Nice to have: experience bringing ML or LLM-based models into production systems.

Compensation

For Canada, the expected base salary range is CAD 153,000 to CAD 202,000. Compensation is influenced by factors such as experience, relevant skills, education or training, and organizational needs. A different level may result in a different pay range. The role also includes equity and a broad benefits package.

Benefits

• Flexible work model through Scribd Flex.
• Health, dental, and vision coverage.
• Mental health support and disability coverage.
• Paid time off covering vacation, sick leave, holidays, winter break, volunteer time, and sabbaticals.
• Paid parental leave and family support benefits.
• Retirement matching plus employee equity.
• Learning, development, and career growth opportunities.
• Wellness and home office stipends.
• Complimentary access to the Scribd product suite.
• Enterprise access to leading AI tools.

Location and Eligibility

The employer can hire only in approved locations where employees maintain their primary residence in or near designated metro areas. For Canada, eligible locations include Ottawa, Toronto, and Vancouver, along with nearby commuting areas. The posting is for Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

Additional Information

Applicants may request reasonable interview accommodations at any time by contacting the company directly. The employer also states that applicant and employee personal information is handled according to its Employee and Applicant Privacy Policy. Scribd, Inc. is an equal opportunity employer and welcomes applicants from all backgrounds, including those protected by law.