Senior Staff Backend Engineer

We exist to wow our customers. We know we’re doing the right thing when we hear our customers say, “How did we ever live without Coupang?” Born out of an obsession to make shopping, eating, and living easier than ever, we’re collectively disrupting the multi-billion-dollar e-commerce industry from the ground up. We are one of the fastest-growing e-commerce companies that established an unparalleled reputation for being a dominant and reliable force in South Korean commerce.   

We are proud to have the best of both worlds — a startup culture with the resources of a large global public company. This fuels us to continue our growth and launch new services at the speed we have been since our inception. We are all entrepreneurs surrounded by opportunities to drive new initiatives and innovations. At our core, we are bold and ambitious people that like to get our hands dirty and make a hands-on impact. At Coupang, you will see yourself, your colleagues, your team, and the company grow every day.   

Our mission to build the future of commerce is real. We push the boundaries of what’s possible to solve problems and break traditional tradeoffs. Join Coupang now to create an epic experience in this always-on, high-tech, and hyper-connected world.  

Role Overview

As part of our Application Infrastructure org, this is a greenfield team that will impact complex Coupang workflow systems. We need to create a set of systems that will allow rapid workflow development for hundreds of domain teams, allowing critical infrastructure like rocket delivery service. It is a highly visible system with hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue flowing through the systems. It is a chance to design from scratch, and create a reliable workflow service at scale.

We are looking for a visionary Senior Staff Software Engineer to lead the architectural design and implementation of our next-generation durable execution platform. This team is tasked with building a highly scalable, fault-tolerant system from scratch that enables developers to write long-running, reliable workflows as code.

At Coupang, we Aim High and Find a Way to solve impossible problems. You will be responsible for building a system that doesn't just meet industry standards but sets them, ensuring 5-6 nines availability while leveraging AI to automate complex system behaviors and self-healing capabilities

What You Will Do

• Architect from Zero: Lead the end-to-end design of a distributed workflow engine. You will Build the Best Team and Help Them Grow by setting the gold standard for architectural integrity and high-performance code.
• Define Extreme Availability: Design for "5-6 nines" (99.9999% availability). You will Dive Deep into the tail latencies and edge cases of distributed state management to ensure our platform is always on for our customers.
• AI-Driven Automation: Integrate AI/ML models to automate system functionality, including predictive scaling, automated bottleneck detection, and intelligent error recovery, ensuring we Wow the Customer through seamless platform performance and availability.
• Solve Hard Problems: Address challenges related to distributed locking, timers, and deterministic execution. You must Be Data-Driven to validate architectural decisions against massive traffic patterns.
• Lead with Influence: As a Senior Staff Engineer, you will Influence without Authority, collaborating across the organization to ensure this platform becomes the backbone of our global operations.

Basic Qualifications 

• Bachelor's degree in computer science, Electrical Engineering, Math, or a closely related field
• 8 years of experience in backend software development
• Proficiency in Java and the Spring Framework
• Experience working in cloud environments, particularly AWS
• Demonstrated experience in building and maintaining highly available, distributed systems

Preferred Qualifications

• Extensive Experience: 12+ years of professional software development experience, specifically building backend infrastructure that supports global-scale traffic.
• High Availability Mastery: Proven track record of managing and maintaining systems with 5-6 nines of availability. You understand that "good enough" isn't enough; we Focus on the Customer and the Experience by ensuring zero downtime.
• Distributed Systems Expert: Deep expertise in designing and deploying mission-critical systems (e.g., databases, messaging queues, or orchestration engines) from the ground up.
• Technical Mastery: Expert-level proficiency in Java, Python with deep understanding of concurrency and memory management.
• AI Integration: Experience or a strong architectural vision for using AI/ML to automate system-level functionality and operational tasks.
• Specialized Knowledge: Deep familiarity with the Temporal or Cadence programming models and their underlying architecture. Experience in Kubernetes and containerization.
• Stateful Database Experience: Experience with Cassandra and TiDB preferred
• Open Source Leadership: Experience contributing to major open-source distributed systems projects.
• Observability Expert: Expertise in building highly observable systems using distributed tracing and advanced telemetry to proactively identify issues.

Pay & Benefits 

Our compensation reflects the cost of living across several US geographic markets. At Coupang, your base pay is one part of your total compensation. 

The base pay for this position ranges from $174,000/year to $299,000/year. Pay is based on several factors including market location and may vary depending on job-related knowledge, skills and experience. 

General Description of All Benefits 

• Annual bonus is 0-20% of the base salary
• Medical/Dental/Vision/Life, AD&D insurance
• Flexible Spending Accounts (FSA) & Health Savings Account (HAS)
• Long-term/Short-term Disability
• Employee Assistance Program (EAP) program
• 401K Plan with Company Match
• 18-21 days of Paid Time Off (PTO) a year based on the tenure
• 12 Paid Holidays
• Paid Parental leave
• Pre-tax commuter benefits
• MTV- [Free] Electric Car Charging Station 

General Description of Other Compensation 

“Other Compensation” includes, but is not limited to, bonuses, equity, or other forms of compensation that would be offered to the hired applicant in addition to their established salary or wage scale. 

Recruitment Process and Others  

Recruitment Process   

• Application Review - Phone Interview - Onsite (or Virtual Onsite) Interview – Offer 

• The exact nature of the recruitment process may vary according to the specific job and may be changed due to scheduling or other circumstances. 

• Interview schedules and the results will be informed to the applicant via the e-mail address submitted at the application stage. 

Details to Consider  

• This job posting may be closed prior to the stated end date for application if all openings are filled. 

• Coupang has the right to rescind an offer of employment if a candidate is found to have submitted false information as part of the application process. 

• Coupang does not discriminate against disabled applicants or those with veteran status. We are proud to offer equal opportunities for all applicants. 

 Privacy Notice   

• Your personal information will be collected and managed by Coupang as stated in the Application Privacy Notice located below: https://www.coupang.jobs/privacy-policy/  

Coupang is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, or gender (including pregnancy, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, transgender status), national origin, age, disability, medical condition, HIV/AIDS or Hepatitis C status, marital status, military or veteran status, use of a trained dog guide or service animal, political activities, or affiliations, citizenship, or any other characteristic or class protected by the laws or regulations in the locations where we operate. If you need assistance and/or reasonable accommodation in the recruiting process due to a disability, please contact us at [email protected].