Backend Engineer, Whatnot

Customer Experience & Operations

$162-215k

Offers Equity

Python

Postgres

Excel

Elixir

Senior and Expert level

Los Angeles

New York

San Francisco Bay Area

Live stream platform & marketplace for collectibles

Be an early applicant

Live stream platform & marketplace for collectibles

501-1000 employees

B2CMarketplaceToysSocialSocial MediaConsumer Goods

Be an early applicant

$162-215k

Offers Equity

Python

Postgres

Excel

Elixir

Senior and Expert level

Los Angeles

New York

San Francisco Bay Area

501-1000 employees

B2CMarketplaceToysSocialSocial MediaConsumer Goods

Company mission

Whatnot missions is to enable anyone to turn their passion into a business and bring people together through commerce.

Job

Company

Role

Who you are

As our next Backend Engineer, you should have 5+ years of full-time software engineering experience in high growth startups
Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, a related field, or equivalent work experience
Backend Expertise: Proven track record of building end-to-end product experiences and scaling high-scale backend systems. Experience with Python, Elixir, and/or Postgres is a plus. Experience with Python, Elixir, and/or Postgres is a plus
Ownership Mindset: Own projects holistically from inception to production and beyond. You are known for shipping high-quality products and platform level initiatives fast
Product Instinct: Excel at translating user needs to effective technical solutions
Problem Solving: Thrive in ambiguity and tackle challenging problems with creativity and autonomy
Team Leadership: Proactively improve the team environment and foster inclusive, supportive team culture

What the job involves

We’re looking for a Senior Backend Engineer to join the Customer Experience team and help us build a world-class Customer Support platform
With Whatnot’s rapid growth comes a high volume of complex support needs—spanning technical, purchasing, and logistics issues for both buyers and sellers
Our team is responsible for resolving them quickly, reliably, and with high customer satisfaction
As a member of the team, you’ll build new user-facing experiences, scale internal infrastructure, and design intelligent AI-powered automations to help us solve thousands of customer issues per hour
You’ll lead solutions end to end. You’ll translate ambiguous business problems into clear technical solutions and drive delivery and experimentation
Your role will involve creative problem-solving to balance development speed, product impact, and technical excellence

Our take

The collectible 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 collectible toys, some of which are rare and can cost thousands of dollars, and has also expanded to sports cards.

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

Top investors

54% employee growth in 12 months

Glassdoor (4.9)

Trustpilot (4.2)

Company

Funding (last 2 of 7 rounds)

Jan 2025

$265m

SERIES E

Jul 2022

$260m

SERIES D

Total funding: $749.2m

Company benefits

Wellness: Health, dental, vision, and life insurance plans. We also cover some of the cost for your dependents as well.
Compensation: Full-time Whatnauts receive equity, a WFH stipend to support your remote workspace and a monthly stipend to dogfood the app.
Recharge: Flexible Time Off policy, holiday week off at the end of year, and paid parental leave after 1 year with us.
Flexibility: Remote-first work culture. We provide a working environment where you're in charge of your time and schedule.

Company HQ

Marina del Rey, CA

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.

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