Staff Software Engineer, Fulfillment Expansion

Whatnot•Seattle, WA

9d•$230,000 - $290,000•Hybrid

About The Position

Whatnot’s Fulfillment organization builds systems and interfaces that support tens of millions of shipments per month. Fulfillment Expansion helps sellers ship anything, from anywhere to anywhere, as cheaply as possible. The Staff Software Engineer will bring both product and platform experience to complex problems at global scale, partnering with product, design, and engineering leaders to understand the domain, evaluate product and technical tradeoffs, and guide decisions that accelerate future development. This is a high-impact, hands-on role focused on identifying important problems in ambiguous areas, creating a path forward, and building solutions that improve user experience and help other teams ship more quickly. The position partners with Product, Design, Data Science, and end users; owns work from ideation and architecture through monitoring, observability, on-call, and experiment analysis; and designs systems at the interface of digital and physical operations. The engineer sets technical direction for Fulfillment and influences partner-team roadmaps using data and product outcomes, uses AI thoughtfully in engineering work, and raises the engineering bar through hands-on contributions, reviews, and mentorship. The role offers flexibility to work from home or a global office hub. Team members must live within commuting distance of the New York City, San Francisco, or Seattle hub. Whatnot expects employees to use its product as both a buyer and seller.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or a related field, or equivalent work experience.
At least 8 years of full-time software engineering experience, including building and operating large-scale distributed systems in production.
Strong communication skills and a track record of leading substantial cross-team technical initiatives, defining problems, aligning partners, and shipping through ambiguity.
Excellent product instincts and a focus on solving user problems rather than technical perfection alone.
Demonstrated experience modeling complex technical domains and building abstractions that accelerate product development.
Ability to take ownership of an ambiguous area, define it, and drive impact.
Ability to work flexibly across multiple workstreams in a fast-paced environment.
Commitment to hands-on engineering, including writing code, documenting architectural decisions, and driving alignment when needed.
Experience mentoring engineers and improving the quality of designs, code, and operational practices.
Must live within commuting distance of Whatnot’s New York City, San Francisco, or Seattle hub.

Nice To Haves

Experience in adjacent domains such as rideshare coordination, food delivery, marketplace fulfillment, trust or risk operations, or order tracking and exception-handling systems.
Experience working on a marketplace or other two-sided platform.
Direct experience in logistics, shipping, fulfillment, or payments systems.

Responsibilities

Partner with Product, Design, Data Science, and end users to build scalable, efficient solutions to user and business problems.
Own work end-to-end, from ideation and architecture through monitoring, observability, on-call, and experiment analysis.
Design complex systems connecting digital and physical operations to help sellers scale and support Whatnot’s business.
Set technical direction for Fulfillment and influence roadmaps across partner teams, using data and product outcomes to guide decisions.
Use AI thoughtfully in day-to-day engineering to improve quality, learning speed, debugging, and execution while independently assessing correctness and risk.
Raise engineering quality through hands-on contributions, design and code reviews, and mentorship.
Use Whatnot as both a buyer and seller as part of the role.

Benefits

Generous holiday and time-off policy.
Health insurance options including medical, dental, and vision.
Work-from-home support.
Home office setup allowance.
Monthly cell phone and internet allowance.
Care benefits.
Monthly wellness allowance.
Annual childcare allowance.
Lifetime family-planning benefit, including adoption or fertility expenses.
US Traditional and Roth 401(k) offering with employer match up to 4% of base salary; pension plans internationally.
Monthly allowance to use Whatnot’s app as a buyer and seller.
16 weeks of paid parental leave plus one month of gradual return to work; company leave allowances run concurrently with applicable country leave requirements, which take precedence.