Staff Backend Engineer

We exist to wow our customers. We know we're doing the right thing when we hear our customers say, "How did we ever live without Coupang?" Born out of an obsession to make shopping, eating, and living easier than ever, we're collectively disrupting the multi-billion-dollar e-commerce industry from the ground up. We are one of the fastest-growing e-commerce companies that established an unparalleled reputation for being a dominant and reliable force in South Korean commerce.

We are proud to have the best of both worlds — a startup culture with the resources of a large global public company. This fuels us to continue our growth and launch new services at the speed we have been since our inception. We are all entrepreneurs surrounded by opportunities to drive new initiatives and innovations. At our core, we are bold and ambitious people that like to get our hands dirty and make a hands-on impact. At Coupang, you will see yourself, your colleagues, your team, and the company grow every day.

Our mission to build the future of commerce is real. We push the boundaries of what's possible to solve problems and break traditional tradeoffs. Join Coupang now to create an epic experience in this always-on, high-tech, and hyper-connected world.

Role Overview

The Search & Discovery Product Engineering team is building an inspiring search and discovery journey for Coupang customers, help our users find products easier and discover more products to live their life to the best. We are looking for experienced backend engineer lead who can help evolve the Coupang Search & Discovery CX platform, explore rebuilding the search and discovery experience with most advanced AI technology, especially LLM.

What You Will Do

• Analyze and understand the root causes the bottle necks of the current system architecture of search experience
• Propose solutions which address these bottlenecks and leverage the state-of-the-art system technologies
• Build brand new user search experience product for Coupang with AI, especially LLM
• Knit across teams by collaborating with Product managers and designers and other functions

Minimum Qualifications

• 4 years of relevant industry experience with distributed systems, system programming and backend development
• 4 years of solid work with fundamental algorithms, system design, and large distributed systems.
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or equivalent

Preferred Qualifications

• Strong passion for building products
• Strong ownership, having experience of working in early startups is a plus
• Embrace messiness, wants to be challenged with complex issues Scrappy and willing to take risks
• Experience of LLM application or ML model serving
• Big bonus if you have React Web development previously
• Experience in building and owning critical user-facing API platform and corresponding backend systems, and solving complex design, scaling, latency, or performance problems in high-volume low-latency distributed systems Strong communication skills and great product sense

Pay & Benefits

Our compensation reflects the cost of living across several US geographic markets. At Coupang, your base pay is one part of your total compensation. The base pay for this position ranges from $138,000/year in our lowest geographic market to $297,000/year in our highest geographic market. Pay is based on several factors including market location and may vary depending on job-related knowledge, skills, and experience.

General Description of All Benefits

• Medical/Dental/Vision/Life, AD&D insurance
• Flexible Spending Accounts (FSA) & Health Savings Account (HSA)
• Long-term/Short-term Disability
• Employee Assistance Program (EAP) program
• 401K Plan with Company Match
• 18-21 days of the Paid Time Off (PTO) a year based on the tenure
• 12 Paid Holidays
• Paid Parental leave
• Pre-tax commuter benefits
• MTV - [Free] Electric Car Charging Station

General Description of Other Compensation

"Other Compensation" includes, but is not limited to, bonuses, equity, or other forms of compensation that would be offered to the hired applicant in addition to their established salary range or wage scale.

Coupang is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, or gender (including pregnancy, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, transgender status), national origin, age, disability, medical condition, HIV/AIDS or Hepatitis C status, marital status, military or veteran status, use of a trained dog guide or service animal, political activities, or affiliations, citizenship, or any other characteristic or class protected by the laws or regulations in the locations where we operate.

If you need assistance and/or reasonable accommodation in the recruiting process due to a disability, please contact us at

Requisition # R0066254