Software Engineer, Whatnot
Payments Experience
$190-260k
Offers equity
Live stream platform & marketplace for collectibles
Be an early applicant
Live stream platform & marketplace for collectibles
501-1000 employees
Be an early applicant
$190-260k
Offers equity
501-1000 employees
Company mission
Whatnot missions is to enable anyone to turn their passion into a business and bring people together through commerce.
Role
Who you are
- Your ability to make good trade-offs, exercise good judgment and communicate effectively is essential to us
- Curious about who thrives at Whatnot? We’ve found that embodying a low ego, growth mindset, and high-impact drive goes a long way here
- As our next Senior Software Engineer, you should have 7+ years of software development experience building scalable systems that can handle millions of users
- Excellent product instincts. You first think about users and long term objectives when designing a technical solution
- You have designed complex distributed systems that power products used by millions of users
- You’re seasoned in defining the technical roadmap for team, identifying areas that need improvement and leading cross-team solutions
- You can identify, architect, and build the right systems or products to improve the business
- You deeply understand and can explain the various trade offs made in decisions
- You enable collaboration across multiple teams to deliver on cross-team initiatives, while delegating ownership and uplifting those around you
- You can mentor others, and prioritize building inclusive, supportive teams
- You’re a project owner - you have strong ownership instincts and can own projects from inception to production to maintenance
- You’re known for shipping high quality products and features quickly and iteratively towards the ultimate goal
- You’re an excellent problem solver and don’t need to be told exactly what to do
- You’re open to doing frontend work when required
- Have the ability to quickly become effective in new technologies
- Have experience working with payment systems, infrastructure, and international commerce (nice to have)
- Have startup experience at a high-growth company (nice to have)
- Knowledge of multiple programming languages (we primarily use Python, Elixir, JavaScript - direct experience is nice to have for a well balanced candidate)
What the job involves
- The Payments - Treasury team at Whatnot are globally responsible for how our business moves and records money and credit in all customer transactions; and how taxes, customs, returns, refunds and more just work, no matter where our customers are in the world
- We are deeply connected with the foundations of our business and have unlocked tremendous growth within and across international territories, while creating exciting new ways for our users to interact and transact on the platform
- You’ll collaborate closely with our partner team, Payments - Experience, and with other teams and senior leaders across Whatnot
- To keep the flywheel spinning, we’re looking to make a number of substantial improvements to critical infrastructure supporting payment scale & reliability, diversity of payment options, fraud mitigation, and improvements in transaction modelling and tax to further provide a seamless international marketplace
- Each member of the team has a number of individual responsibilities and is trusted to advance an aspect of the domain as an expert in collaboration with the leadership team
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
54% employee growth in 12 months
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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