Data Software Engineer, Whatnot
$180-215k
+ Equity
Live stream platform & marketplace
Open for applications
Live stream platform & marketplace
501-1000 employees
Open for applications
$180-215k
+ Equity
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 Software Engineer of Data, you should have 3+ years of experience
- Ability to write well-tested, API-driven applications and services that run at scale in production
- Track record of building scalable and performant distributed systems
- Expertise in managing cloud data stores (Snowflake, BigQuery, Redshift, etc.) for processing and serving data products
- Expertise in streaming data systems such as Kafka, Flink, or Pulsar, and the ability to design and manage real-time processing pipelines at scale
- Strong experience supporting operational systems to ensure uptime, reliability, and maintainability, including monitoring, alerting, and incident management
- Experience managing cloud technologies (AWS or Google Cloud) and comfort with infrastructure-as-code approaches (e.g. Terraform)
- Proficiency in at least one server-side programming language (preferably Python), common algorithms and data structures, and software design principles
- Self-starter ethic, thriving under a high level of autonomy
- Exceptional interpersonal and communication skills
What the job involves
- The Data team at Whatnot creates services that improve our core product experience and unlock business value
- As an engineer, you will play a critical role in defining the technical direction and leading the development of the retrieval platform to power next-gen systems at Whatnot
- You will be responsible for driving innovation, ensuring the scalability and performance of our systems, and working with a team of engineers to deliver high-quality solutions
- Working in a highly cross-functional role, you’ll also make key decisions about how we integrate data systems at Whatnot – and then make it happen
- You’ll be positioned to align efforts to optimize other aspects of our company’s architecture, such as machine learning, real-time analytics, stream processing, and content understanding to name a few
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 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: 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.
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