Senior Backend Engineer

DuckDuckGo is the online protection company and remote-first team of 300+ on a mission to raise the standard of trust online. As a Senior Backend Engineer on the Backend Functional Team, you'll lead complex projects across key company-wide objectives. Using Perl (Version 5), Go, and Node.js, you’ll write pragmatic, performant, testable code that works consistently. You'll collaborate remotely with your peers and take responsibility for solving product issues impacting our all-in-one privacy solution. In time, you'll formally mentor other engineers.

Responsibilities

Lead complex projects across key company-wide objectives; Write pragmatic, performant, testable code using Perl (Version 5), Go, and Node.js; Collaborate remotely with peers; Take responsibility for solving product issues impacting our all-in-one privacy solution; In time, formally mentor other engineers; Implement AI-assisted answers and integrate them into Search product; Deliver improvements to Duck.ai; Implement sophisticated data processing pipelines that maintain search relevancy

Requirements

7+ years of professional experience, primarily focused on backend systems that power consumer-facing products; Product acumen to reason about technical tradeoffs in terms of user impact; Familiarity with AI agent tooling: evaluation frameworks, RAG pipelines and prompt engineering; A fundamental understanding of complex data structures and algorithms — you can develop and apply new solutions and confidently navigate and improve existing code; Data-driven analytical skills for decision-making, stakeholder alignment, and experiment-oriented delivery; Solid project management abilities; Excellent written and verbal communication to validate and articulate decisions; Previous experience leading and mentoring experienced engineers, supporting their career goals, and unlocking their potential.

Benefits

Stock options; Company-sponsored health benefits (for US-based team members); Paid parental leave; Office setup allowance; Co-working allowance; Flexible work arrangement with no core hours