Senior Backend Engineer - Ads
Confirmed live in the last 24 hours
Faire
Compensation
$122,500 - $214,500/year
Job Description
About Faire
Faire is an online wholesale marketplace built on the belief that the future is local — independent retailers around the globe are doing more revenue than Walmart and Amazon combined, but individually, they are small compared to these massive entities. At Faire, we're using the power of tech, data, and machine learning to connect this thriving community of entrepreneurs across the globe. Picture your favorite boutique in town — we help them discover the best products from around the world to sell in their stores. With the right tools and insights, we believe that we can level the playing field so that small businesses everywhere can compete with these big box and e-commerce giants.
By supporting the growth of independent businesses, Faire is driving positive economic impact in local communities, globally. We’re looking for smart, resourceful and passionate people to join us as we power the shop local movement. If you believe in community, come join ours.
About this Role:
Faire’s Ads teams are building the next generation of marketplace intelligence — powering personalized discovery and efficient ad delivery for our brands and retailers. Our systems connect the right products with the right buyers through intelligent pricing, auction mechanisms, and large-scale retrieval and ranking pipelines.
As a Senior Back-end Engineer (L4), you’ll take ownership of the core algorithms and infrastructure that shape the way our ads and search systems decide what to show, to whom, and at what price. You’ll collaborate closely with Data Science and Infrastructure teams to improve our marketplace’s economic efficiency and customer experience at scale.
This role offers a rare opportunity to shape both product and technical direction in a fast-moving, high-impact area at Faire.
What You’ll Do:
- Design and evolve large-scale retrieval, ranking, and pricing systems to optimize relevance, performance, and marketplace efficiency.
- Collaborate with the Data Science and Infrastructure teams to develop auction-based delivery systems and scoring pipelines that balance advertiser ROI with retailer experience.
- Own critical services within our Kotlin-based backend, driving reliability, scalability, and low-latency performance across billions of ad and search events.
- Measure and iterate on system performance, using experimentation and analytics to guide continuous improvement.
- Mentor engineers and contribute to team best practices in design reviews, performance tuning, and system architecture.
We’re Excited About You Because You Have:
- Experience: 5+ years in backend systems, including 2+ years working on large-scale ad delivery, auction mechanics, retrieval/ranking pipelines, or pricing optimization systems.
- Technical Depth: Proficiency in Kotlin, Java, or similar object-oriented languages; comfort with distributed systems, service design, and performance optimization.
- Collaboration: Strong communication skills and a track record of partnering with cross-functional stakeholders, from DS to PM, to deliver complex systems.
- Mindset: Curiosity and a drive to understand complex market dynamics; passion for applying data and algorithms to real-world business problems.
- Education: Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science/Engineering or equivalent industry experience.
Technologies We Use and Teach:
- Kotlin, Java, Python
- JUnit, Hibernate, Guice, Jersey
- HTTP, JSON, Protocol Buffers
- MySQL, CockroachDB, Elasticsearch
- AWS
Salary Range:
Canada: the pay range for this role is $156,000 - $214,500pythonjavagoawsmachine learningaibackendiosdataanalytics
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