Staff Backend Engineer

What You Will Do Serve as a technical lead on our most demanding, cross-functional projects involving Inventory and Promise. Independently come up with quality architecture and design of systems for new microservices and machine learning pipelines. Functionally decompose complex problems into simple, straightforward solutions. Possess expert knowledge in performance, scalability, enterprise distributed architecture, and engineering best practices. Assist in the career development of others, actively mentoring individuals and the community on advanced technical issues and helping managers guide the career growth of their team members. Exert technical influence over multiple teams, increasing their productivity and effectiveness by sharing your deep knowledge and experience. Basic Qualifications 8+ years of experience designing and operating high-scale distributed systems with strict latency and reliability requirements Excellent hands-on coding ability in Java or other Similar (backend systems at scale) Deep understanding of system design — API design, concurrency, data modelling, caching strategies, messaging, service-to-service communication (gRPC, REST) Strong code review skills — ability to identify subtle correctness, performance, and reliability issues in complex codebases Experience with production-grade systems handling high QPS, large data volumes, or Tier-1 SLAs Experience with event-driven architectures using Kafka at scale Experience with multi-region systems Experience with resilience engineering — circuit breakers, retry strategies, load testing, capacity planning, graceful degradation patterns Track record of technical leadership — setting architecture direction, driving cross-team alignment, mentoring senior engineers Preferred Qualifications Experience in ecommerce, fulfilment, supply chain, logistics, inventory, order management, or planning systems Experience with optimization systems — solvers (CPLEX, OR-Tools), decision engines, constraint programming, or data-science-integrated production systems Experience with Agentic AI tools for development and code review — using AI-assisted coding agents (e.g., Cursor, Copilot, Devin, Claude Code) to accelerate development velocity, improve code review quality, and automate repetitive engineering tasks Experience with Spec-Driven Development — defining system behaviour through specifications (OpenAPI/Swagger, Protocol Buffers, API-first design, contract-first development) before implementation, ensuring well-defined contracts between services Type of work model Hybrid Our Hybrid work model: Coupang hybrid work model is designed to enable a culture of collaboration that acts a catalyst to enrich the experience of employees. Employees are required to work at least 3 days in the office per week, with the flexibility to work from home 2 days a week, depending on the role requirement. Some businesses may require more time in office due to nature of work. Details to consider Those eligible for employment protection (recipients of veteran’s benefits, the disabled, etc.) may receive preferential treatment for employment in accordance with applicable laws. Privacy Notice Your personal information will be collected and managed by Coupang as stated in the Application Privacy Notice located below. https://privacy.coupang.com/en/land/jobs/