Senior Backend Engineer, SoundCloud

Recommendations Systems, Machine Learning

Salary not provided

+ Employee Equity Plan

SQL

AWS

Docker

Kubernetes

GCP

Python

Scala

Airflow

Tensorflow

Spark

PyTorch

BigQuery

DynamoDB

Mid and Senior level

Berlin

London

More information about location

Next-generation music entertainment ecosystem

Job no longer available

Next-generation music entertainment ecosystem

501-1000 employees

B2CMusicSaaSCommunityMedia

Job no longer available

Salary not provided

+ Employee Equity Plan

SQL

AWS

Docker

Kubernetes

GCP

Python

Scala

Airflow

Tensorflow

Spark

PyTorch

BigQuery

DynamoDB

Mid and Senior level

Berlin

London

More information about location

501-1000 employees

B2CMusicSaaSCommunityMedia

Company mission

To empower artists and fans to connect and share through music.

Job

Company

Role

Who you are

4+ years software engineering experience - you write production code, not just notebooks
1-2+ years building ML systems in production - you understand the difference between a model that works in Jupyter and one that serves millions of users
Strong Scala knowledge or closely related JVM languages, with strong functional programming experience. Python and Go are a Plus
Deep SQL skills for massive datasets (BigQuery, Spark)
Cloud platform experience (AWS/GCP) and containerization (Docker, Kubernetes)
Familiarity with TensorFlow, PyTorch, or similar frameworks
Experience with distributed data processing and ETL pipelines (Airflow, Spark)
Understanding of data consistency patterns, eventual consistency, and the trade-offs
You can debug issues across multiple systems and data sources

What the job involves

We are looking for a Senior Engineer to join our Recommendations team
While this is a Backend Engineer role, you’ll work across the full stack and end-to-end systems, from data pipelines to APIs to real-time serving, and everything in between
The Recommendations team ships ML-powered features that connect 200M+ users with music they'll love
We're product engineers who happen to use machine learning - not researchers optimizing metrics in isolation
You'll own features end-to-end: from understanding user needs with Product and Design, to architecting data pipelines processing billions of events, to shipping production systems that balance performance, cost, and user experience
This means working across BigQuery (trillion-row datasets), Airflow orchestration, real-time serving infrastructure (BigTable), APIs, and constant collaboration with Product, Design, Engineering, and Platform teams
Make technical decisions considering cost, latency, complexity, and maintainability - not just model accuracy
Navigate distributed systems (BigQuery, BigTable, Airflow, DynamoDB) to build reliable, scalable solutions
Design and implement data pipelines, feature engineering, model training, and serving infrastructure
Write technical RFCs and communicate trade-offs to diverse stakeholders
Set up monitoring, A/B testing, and metrics frameworks to measure real user impact
Debug complex issues across data pipelines, ML models, and distributed systems
Champion maintainable code over clever code - write clear, testable Scala/Python that your teammates can modify
Share knowledge through documentation, code reviews, and mentoring
Contribute to technical strategy and team best practices

Our take

Founded in 2007, SoundCloud recognized the need for an artist-first platform. The company set out with a clear mission: to empower independent artists by providing them with the necessary tools and resources to grow and build their careers.

Today, SoundCloud boasts over 40M artists on its platform, far outpacing Spotify, which has 11M. As a result, SoundCloud is the largest audio discovery platform in a rapidly growing market. According to MIDiA Research, the independent artist market is poised for continued revenue growth in the coming years, further solidifying SoundCloud's place in the industry.

The company plans to scale its audience and expand its services through new offerings, such as the SoundCloud "roster". This tier system is designed to provide artists with significant creative and financial resources, along with market support, rivalling major record labels. While artists retain ownership of their copyrights, they will be represented by SoundCloud, further enhancing the platform's appeal to independent creators.