Reddit

Senior Staff Software Engineer, Client Architecture

Reddit$232K — $325K *
US-AnywhereRemote in United States
Information Technology
8 - 10 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • 10+ years of software engineering experience, with senior-level expertise in consumer-facing applications.
  • Deep understanding of modern web architecture (React, TypeScript) and native mobile paradigms (iOS/Swift, Android/Kotlin).
  • Proven ability in resolving client-side performance issues and building interactive features like rich-text editors.
  • Exceptional communication skills, capable of influencing technical direction at senior levels without direct management.
  • Experience leading cross-functional engineering projects with a focus on technical excellence and growth.

Responsibilities

  • Define and execute a client architecture strategy for video creation and editing across platforms.
  • Build and scale new content contribution formats within the existing post and comment experience.
  • Mentor and lead the Contribution engineering team, ensuring alignment across all platform engineering efforts.
  • Utilize AI-assisted tools to enhance development workflows and system design.
  • Optimize client infrastructure for high performance, tackling complex engineering challenges.

Benefits

  • Comprehensive healthcare benefits and income replacement programs.
  • 401k plan with employer match.
  • Global benefits to support professional development and personal needs.
  • Family planning support and gender-affirming care available.
  • Mental health services and coaching benefits included.
  • Flexible vacation and time off for volunteering.
  • Generous paid parental leave for new parents.
Full Job Description
We need a web client and mobile consumer product domain expert to lead the architectural overhaul of our post and comment composers across all platforms. As a Senior Staff Engineer, you will define the multi-year technical vision for how users create content on Reddit. You will focus on continued modernization of our composers and building out new contribution formats, particularly the future of video creation and editing. By removing client-side friction, integrating intelligent posting/commenting user empowerment, and setting the standard for client performance, you will be the technical cornerstone for accelerating our global user contribution and content ecosystem growth. Key Responsibilities: • Architect for Scale: Define and execute the org-wide client architecture strategy to support seamless video creation, editing, and uploading directly within our shared composers. Establish the patterns for how all future formats integrate into the client layer. • Accelerate Product Roadmap: Build and scale new contribution formats natively within the shared post and comment experiences. Unblock execution for high-upside strategic bets designed to reduce identity-risk barriers for sensitive content and productize viral, low-effort creation formats that convert passive consumers into active contributors. • Mentorship & Org Leadership: Serve as the technical anchor for the Contribution engineering team and influence the broader Content Ecosystem org. Translate complex product requirements into actionable technical roadmaps and drive alignment across Web, iOS, and Android platforms. • Leverage Modern Tooling: Thoughtfully utilize AI-assisted development tools to accelerate prototyping, system design, and coding, while applying rigorous judgment to validate and own the final outputs. Evangelize AI as a tool. • Optimize Contribution Funnel: Lead the engineering of highly performant client infrastructure. You will tackle challenges like zero-latency rich-text rendering, resilient edge-optimized media upload pipelines, and complex state synchronization for offline and online editing to maximize global contribution success rates. Qualifications: • 10+ years of professional software engineering experience with a proven track record as a Senior Staff Engineer or Principal Engineer on consumer-facing mobile or web client applications. • Client Architecture Expertise: Deep mastery of modern web architecture (e.g., React, TypeScript, advanced state management) with strong architectural command of native mobile paradigms (iOS/Swift, Android/Kotlin) to define unified client APIs and lead cross-platform engineering standards. • Domain Expertise: Demonstrated track record of solving hard client-side performance and rendering bottlenecks at scale, building highly interactive features such as zero-latency rich-text editors, asynchronous media processing pipelines, or real-time state synchronization systems. • Communication: Exceptional written and verbal communication skills. Ability to influence VP-level technical direction and navigate strict tradeoffs between performance, reliability, and business impact without directly managing the engineers involved. • Demonstrated ability to lead large, cross-functional engineering initiatives that balance technical excellence with aggressive growth targets. Benefits: • Comprehensive Healthcare Benefits and Income Replacement Programs • 401k with Employer Match • Global Benefit programs that fit your lifestyle, from workspace to professional development to caregiving support • Family Planning Support • Gender-Affirming Care • Mental Health & Coaching Benefits • Flexible Vacation & Paid Volunteer Time Off • Generous Paid Parental Leave Pay Transparency: This job posting may span more than one career level. In addition to base salary, this job is eligible to receive equity in the form of restricted stock units, and depending on the position offered, it may also be eligible to receive a commission. Additionally, Reddit offers a wide range of benefits to U.S.-based employees, including medical, dental, and vision insurance, 401(k) program with employer match, generous time off for vacation, and parental leave. To learn more, please visit https://www.redditinc.com/careers/. To provide greater transparency to candidates, we share base salary ranges for all US-based job postings regardless of state. We set standard base pay ranges for all roles based on function, level, and country location, benchmarked against similar stage growth companies. Final offer amounts are determined by multiple factors including, skills, depth of work experience and relevant licenses/credentials, and may vary from the amounts listed below. The base salary range for this position is: $232,500-$325,500 USD In select roles and locations, the interviews will be recorded, transcribed and summarized by artificial intelligence (AI). You will have the opportunity to opt out of recording, transcription and summarization prior to any scheduled interviews. During the interview, we will collect the following categories of personal information: Identifiers, Professional and Employment-Related Information, Sensory Information (audio/video recording), and any other categories of personal information you choose to share with us. We will use this information to evaluate your application for employment or an independent contractor role, as applicable. We will not sell your personal information or disclose it to any third party for their marketing purposes. We will delete any recording of your interview promptly after making a hiring decision. For more information about how we will handle your personal information, including our retention of it, please refer to our Candidate Privacy Policy for Potential Employees and Contractors.

About Reddit

Reddit is an American social news aggregation, web content rating, and discussion website. Registered members submit content to the site such as links, text posts, images, and videos, which are then voted up or down by other members. Posts are organized by subject into user-created boards called "communities" or "subreddits", which cover topics such as news, politics, religion, science, movies, video games, music, books, sports, fitness, cooking, pets, and image-sharing. Submissions with more upvotes appear towards the top of their subreddit and, if they receive enough upvotes, ultimately on the site's front page. Although there are strict rules prohibiting harassment, it still occurs, and Reddit administrators moderate the communities and close or restrict them on occasion. Moderation is also conducted by community-specific moderators, who are not considered Reddit employees. As of September 2021, Reddit ranks as the 19th-most-visited website in the world and 7th most-visited website in the U.S., according to Alexa Internet. About 42–49.3% of its user base comes from the United States, followed by the United Kingdom at 7.9–8.2% and Canada at 5.2–7.8%. Twenty-two percent of U.S. adults aged 18 to 29 years, and 14 percent of U.S. adults aged 30 to 49 years, regularly use Reddit. Reddit was founded by University of Virginia roommates Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian, with Aaron Swartz, in 2005. Condé Nast Publications acquired the site in October 2006. In 2011, Reddit became an independent subsidiary of Condé Nast's parent company, Advance Publications. In October 2014, Reddit raised $50 million in a funding round led by Sam Altman and including investors Marc Andreessen, Peter Thiel, Ron Conway, Snoop Dogg, and Jared Leto. Their investment valued the company at $500 million then. In July 2017, Reddit raised $200 million for a $1.8 billion valuation, with Advance Publications remaining the majority stakeholder. In February 2019, a $300 million funding round led by Tencent brought the company's valuation to $3 billion. In August 2021, a $700 million funding round led by Fidelity Investments raised that valuation to over $10 billion.
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