About this role
DuckDuckGo
The search engine that doesn't track you
- B2C
- Scale Stage
Rapidly increasing operations
- Top Investors
This company has received a significant amount of investment from top investors
B2C
Scale Stage
Rapidly increasing operations
Top Investors
This company has received a significant amount of investment from top investors
Senior Backend Engineer
- $190k – $190k
- |Remote ( Everywhere )
- |7 years of exp
- |Full Time
Posted: today Recruiter recently active
Hires remotely in
Everywhere
Remote Work Policy Remote only
Company Location
Philadelphia
Visa Sponsorship Not Available
RelocationNot Allowed
About the job
Who We Are
Hi, we're DuckDuckGo, the online protection company and remote-first team of 400+ on a mission to raise the standard of trust online. Founded in 2008 and profitable since 2014, our annual revenue is in the hundreds of millions USD and millions use our browser on Mac, Windows, iOS, and Android, our search engine, and the DuckDuckGo subscription. We also offer private, useful, and optional AI, including Duck.ai, which lets you chat privately with ChatGPT, Claude, and other AIs, all in one place.
Our culture of trust, inclusivity, and empowered project management underpins everything we do, where each team member takes full ownership of their projects, from scoping and execution to postmortem. If you're seeking end-to-end ownership of your work, you've come to the right place!
Your Team and Role
Working on the Backend Functional Team, you'll lead complex projects across key company-wide objectives. Using Perl (Version 5), Go, and Node.js, you’ll write pragmatic, performant, testable code that works consistently, and work on related projects. Recent projects include:
- Implementing AI-assisted answers and integrating them into our Search product while maintaining our privacy-first approach
- Delivering improvements to Duck.ai to help us make it a competitive AI chat alternative for both free and paying users
- Implementing sophisticated data processing pipelines that maintain search relevancy
As a Senior Backend Engineer, you'll collaborate remotely with your peers and take responsibility for solving product issues impacting our all-in-one privacy solution, whether large or small. In time, you'll formally mentor other engineers, supporting their career growth and the growth of the Backend Team at DuckDuckGo.
About You
- 7+ years of professional experience, primarily focused on backend systems that power consumer-facing products
- Product acumen to reason about technical tradeoffs in terms of user impact
- Familiarity with AI agent tooling: evaluation frameworks, RAG pipelines and prompt engineering
- A fundamental understanding of complex data structures and algorithms — you can develop and apply new solutions and confidently navigate and improve existing code.
- Data-driven analytical skills for decision-making, stakeholder alignment, and experiment-oriented delivery
- Solid project management abilities
- Excellent written and verbal communication to validate and articulate decisions
- Previous experience leading and mentoring experienced engineers, supporting their career goals, and unlocking their potential.
Compensation
This role is paid on a regional pay scale, in local currency, and stock options:
United States: $190,500 USD annually
United Kingdom: £134,600 GBP annually
Canada: C$253,500 CAD annually
Europe/Rest of World: €157,350 EUR annually
In Spain, pay is expected to transition to the EUR scale on January 1, 2027, and in other Europe/Rest of World countries on February 1, 2027.
Compensation is transparent across the organization, and all team members within the same professional level and global region receive the same compensation.
Eligibility for company-sponsored health benefits is limited to team members based in the United States. This program does not extend to team members located in other countries, such as Canada or the UK.
Our Team Member Support Guide explains how we prioritize your wellbeing including paid parental leave, office setup, and co-working allowances.
Hiring Process
Hiring works best when it's a two-way street. Learn how we help you get to know DuckDuckGo, envision your future role here, and find out more about how we hire.
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
DuckDuckGo provides equal work opportunities to all team members and applicants, and it prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type on the basis of race, color, ethnicity, caste, religion, age, sex (including pregnancy), national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by our policies or federal, state, or local laws.
We want to ensure that our hiring process is accessible. If you need reasonable accommodation for any part of the application process because of a medical condition or disability, please send a message to let us know the nature of your request.
Please note that:
- You’ll be required to attend meetings on camera via video conferencing
- Expect to travel at least two times a year: once for our all-hands meetup and again for a team retreat (each around 4-5 days). While extenuating circumstances may impact attendance, everyone is strongly encouraged to attend.
- While we offer a flexible work arrangement with no core hours, expect an average full-time commitment of 40 hours per week.
- A successful candidate must pass a background check as a condition of joining the team.
By applying for this role, you confirm that all information submitted is accurate and complete. You further acknowledge that providing false or fraudulent information during the application process is cause for denial of an offer, revocation of any existing offer, or other adverse action, up to and including termination after the start of your commencement of work.
Key Principles:
Data Privacy: All information provided in your application will be handled in accordance with our Recruiting Privacy Policy. We ensure that your personal information is protected and used solely for recruitment purposes.
Human Oversight and Accountability: The AI technology is designed to support our hiring team by providing insights and summaries of applications and evaluations of test projects against scoring rubrics. All final evaluations and hiring decisions, however, will be made by our hiring team, who will consider the AI's input alongside other factors.
Transparency: We believe in transparency regarding our hiring practices. If you have any questions about how AI is used in our recruitment process, please feel free to reach out to us.
By submitting your application, you acknowledge and consent to the use of AI technology in our review process. If you would like to request an alternative selection process, please contact us. Thank you for your interest in joining DuckDuckGo!
About the company
DuckDuckGo
The search engine that doesn't track you 201-500 Employees
Philadelphia
201-500
Startup
Search
Privacy
- B2C
- Scale Stage
Rapidly increasing operations
- Top Investors
This company has received a significant amount of investment from top investors
Employees joined from
Microsoft Nike The Walt Disney Company Mozilla Learn more about DuckDuckGo
Funding AMOUNT RAISED $3M FUNDED OVER 1 round Round A $3000000
Series A - Oct 2011
View DuckDuckGo's funding history
Founders
Gabriel Weinberg Founder
Philadelphia
View the team
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