Software Engineer, Whatnot
2026 New Grad
$140-150k
+ Equity
More information about location
Live stream platform & marketplace
Open for applications
Live stream platform & marketplace
501-1000 employees
Open for applications
$140-150k
+ Equity
More information about location
501-1000 employees
Company mission
To enable anyone to turn their passion into a business and bring people together through commerce.
Role
Who you are
- As our next Engineer you should have some industry software engineering experience
- Graduating with a CS or Software Engineering degree in Dec 2025 or by Summer 2026
- Problem solver and out-of-the-box thinker
- Willing to take risks and build product and systems for 1M+ users
- Capable of building scalable systems
- Excellent product instincts. You first think about users rather than the best technical solution
- You are known for shipping products and features lightning-fast
- Ability to pick up on new technologies very quickly
- Open to relocation to SF, LA, or NYC
What the job involves
- We are looking for intellectually curious, highly motivated individuals to join us post grad in 2026
- The most important skills you’ll need to have are making sound product decisions and shipping high-quality products fast. We look for engineers with great product instincts who can own whole projects from start to finish
- The engineering team operates with a high level of autonomy so we need to hire people we can trust
- Your ability to make good trade-offs and exercise good judgment is essential to us
- Building new features for users in our live-streams
- Implementing growth tactics and strategies to scale our buyer and seller flows
- Building systems at scale that help us deliver a high trust marketplace experience
- Writing product or system development code
- Designing, implementing, and operating our most critical and scalable services
- Carefully evaluating the technical tradeoffs of every decision
- Supporting features at every phase, from design through implementation and launch
- Triage product or system issues and debug/track/resolve by analyzing the sources of issues, network, or service operations and quality
Our take
The collectable toy market is large, and Whatnot has built a unique social platform that enables sellers to use livestreams to showcase their products and reach more buyers. The company’s focus is on collectable toys, some of which are rare and can cost thousands of dollars. It's also expanded to sports cards, coins, comics and more.
The idea of Whatnot was led by buyer trends. Instagram's live feature became a popular place for selling toys and trading cards, but of course was not set up to facilitate bidding or handling payments after a sale occurs. Whatnot combines live showcasing with follow-up sale capabilities, thus serving the community in a more novel way than established collectibles market players such as eBay.
The company has grown fast. It was established in 2019 and has already expanded from its original category - Funko Pop figurines - to Pokemon cards, pins, sports cards, and many more. There is still plenty of scope for expanding into new categories, as the company aims to establish itself as the go-to for this large niche, which will be facilitated by the strong levels of funding that Whatnot has raised.
Steph
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
54% employee growth in 12 months
Glassdoor (4.9)
Trustpilot (4.3)
Company
Funding (last 2 of 8 rounds)
Oct 2025
$225m
SERIES F
Jan 2025
$265m
SERIES E
Total funding: $974.2m
Company benefits
- Wellness: Health, dental, vision, and life insurance plans. We also cover some of the cost for your dependents as well.
- Compensation: Generous compensation, including a competitive base salary and equity. Whatnot offers monthly reimbursement for internet and phone costs, along with a one-time home office set-up allowance. Whatnot offers a pension plan and matches employee contributions of up to 4% of the employee’s base salary.
- Recharge: Whatnot gives you the freedom to take time off as you see fit. And, we take company-wide Winter and Summer breaks so we can recharge. Whatnot provides a monthly allowance for wellness expenses. We know that to take care of our customers, we have to take care of ourselves. Supplemental health and life insurance coverage comes standard at Whatnot. 16 weeks of paid parental leave, and an additional one-month gradual return-to-work period.* Plus an additional childcare allowance, and a lifetime allowance for family planning, including adoption and fertility expenses. *The leave allowances provided by Whatnot may be dictated / informed by your country’s legal requirements,
- Flexibility: As a remote co-located team, we’re inspired by innovation and anchored in our values. With hubs in the US, UK, Germany, Ireland, and Poland, we’re building the future of online marketplaces –together.
Company values
- Always listen to customers
- Move uncomfortably fast
- Prioritize impact ruthlessly
- Own everything and nothing
- Set crazy goals
- Provide extreme transparency
- Optimize for the upside
- Team over ego
- Figure it out
- Deeply understand why
- Have fun & be kind
Company HQ
Marina del Rey, CA
Articles
Leadership
Grant LaFontaine
(Co-Founder & CEO)Former Product Marketing Manager at Google, Project Manager at Facebook. Also co-founded Kit.
Logan Head
(Co-Founder)Experience in Engineering, including at Maker's Row, Factr, and Flight Club. Former Senior Product Manager at GOAT.
Salary benchmarks
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