Staff Backend Engineer – Fable Core

About the role

Fable Core powers the backend, infrastructure and platform for Fable, Scribd’s social reading product used by over 1 M monthly active users. As a Staff Software Engineer you will set the technical direction, ensure platform reliability and partner with product, design, ML and infrastructure teams to turn ambiguous intent into robust backend systems.

Key responsibilities

• Define and socialize technical design documents, drive architecture reviews and translate product intent into concrete backend designs.
• Own backend reliability, including staging, CI/CD pipelines, databases, queues, cost management and observability.
• Lead end‑to‑end incident response, produce durable post‑mortems and ensure action items are shipped.
• Represent the backend in cross‑team planning and coordinate cross‑functional execution.
• Raise the team’s engineering bar through PR reviews, mentorship, pairing and high‑quality design, testing and operations.
• Build and evolve the backend platform to enable faster, safer shipping.
• Introduce and champion agentic engineering practices across the team.

Required profile

• 10+ years of backend experience, strong expertise in Python/Django and at least one additional stack (Go, Node, Java/Kotlin, etc.).
• Hands‑on experience operating production systems on major clouds (GCP/AWS), including OLTP databases, container orchestration and CI/CD.
• Proven track record of owning incidents from detection through resolution and follow‑through.
• Ability to write clear Technical Design Documents that align product and engineering stakeholders.
• Strong cross‑functional collaboration skills with senior product, design and ML partners.
• Pragmatic problem‑solving mindset with a deep systems instinct for root‑cause analysis.
• Experience with agentic engineering tools and workflows in a real production environment.

Required skills

• Python
• Django
• PostgreSQL
• Kubernetes
• Datadog
• Google Cloud Platform (GCP)
• Amazon Web Services (AWS)
• Go, Node.js, Java, Kotlin (any one)
• CI/CD pipelines
• Container orchestration
• Queueing systems
• Agentic engineering tools

What we offer

• Flexible work model (Scribd Flex) with hybrid onsite expectations.
• Comprehensive health, dental and vision coverage plus mental‑health support.
• Generous paid time off, parental leave and sabbatical options.
• Retirement matching, equity ownership and competitive salary.
• Learning and development programs, wellness and home‑office stipends.
• Access to Scribd product suite and leading AI tools.