Software Engineer 5 - Member API

Netflix•New York, NY

9d•$388,000 - $558,000

About The Position

Member API is Netflix's stable abstraction layer between devices and backend systems, serving as the intentional coupling point for how Netflix retrieves and renders discovery related experiences. We own the Consumer Edge GraphQL service, the API paradigms that power every discovery-related screen a Netflix member sees, and the developer experiences that allows partner teams to contribute and consume APIs. We're looking for a teammate who will be a technical authority on client-server API design and GraphQL. You'll work at the intersection of platform engineering and developer experience, defining how APIs are built, governing how they evolve, and ensuring the architecture holds up as Netflix expands into new domains (Games, Live, and beyond). This is not a role for someone who is okay maintaining the status quo. We're actively retiring legacy architectures, converging on GraphQL, and rethinking contribution, governance, and lifecycle tooling from the ground up.

Requirements

Deep, hands-on experience designing and evolving GraphQL APIs at production scale, including schema design, federation, breaking-change management, and field lifecycle governance
Strong intuition for client-server API relationships: you can reason clearly about the tradeoffs between client-driven and server-driven paradigms and know when each is appropriate
Comfort operating in large, distributed systems, reasoning about blast radius, schema ownership boundaries, and the operational implications of changes that touch many downstream consumers
Strong communication skills: you can write precise, clear proposals and hold productive tension with partner teams when their design choices conflict with platform principles

Nice To Haves

Experience with real-time or push-based API patterns (subscriptions, SSE)
Experience owning API platforms or developer-facing infrastructure where other teams are your primary customers, not end users
Prior work on API observability, schema validation tooling, or developer experience platforms

Responsibilities

Evolve the GraphQL schema layer, including federation patterns, and lifecycle governance
Own the API paradigm portfolio across client-driven, server-driven, and emerging patterns, providing clear opinionated guidance on when each fits
Partner with device client engineers and backend domain teams to design APIs that are correct, resilient, and intuitive to consume without requiring knowledge of Member Platform internals
Contribute to the API lifecycle from design through deprecation: tooling, guardrails, governance, and payload health
Shape how AI-assisted (and eventually AI-driven) contributions fit into the API development workflow
Collaborate closely within the team on shared projects and technical decisions, and align cross-functionally with product, client foundations, and partner engineering teams to ensure API investments map to real product needs
Mentor engineers across the team on GraphQL best practices, API design principles, and resilience patterns