Senior Backend Engineer

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 the 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.

• Architect from Zero:
  Lead the end‑to‑end design of a distributed workflow engine. 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). Dive deep into tail latencies and edge cases of distributed state management to ensure the 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. Be data‑driven to validate architectural decisions against massive traffic patterns.
• Lead with Influence:
  As a Senior Staff Engineer, influence without authority, collaborating across the organization to ensure this platform becomes the backbone of our global operations.

• 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

• 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. Understand that “good enough” isn’t enough; 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.

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…