Senior Backend Engineer

• Lead complex backend projects across key company-wide objectives using Perl 5, Go, and Node.js, writing pragmatic, performant, and testable code. • Collaborate remotely with peers and take responsibility for solving product issues impacting DuckDuckGo's all-in-one privacy solution, whether large or small. • Mentor other engineers over time, supporting their career growth and the growth of the Backend Team. • Join a remote-first, profitable company of 300+ team members with $100M+ annual revenue and a culture of end-to-end project ownership.

• Bring 7+ years of professional experience primarily focused on backend systems that power consumer-facing products. • Have product acumen to reason about technical trade-offs in terms of user impact. • Be familiar with AI agent tooling including evaluation frameworks, RAG pipelines, and prompt engineering. • Have a fundamental understanding of complex data structures and algorithms, able to develop and apply new solutions and confidently navigate and improve existing code. • Demonstrate data-driven analytical skills for decision-making, stakeholder alignment, and experiment-oriented delivery. • Have solid project management abilities. • Communicate excellently in writing and verbally to validate and articulate decisions. • Have previous experience leading and mentoring experienced engineers, supporting their career goals, and unlocking their potential.

• Have experience working with Perl 5, Go, or Node.js in production environments. • Bring experience building privacy-first or privacy-constrained systems. • Have worked on search engine infrastructure or AI-assisted product features at scale.

• Implement AI-assisted answers and integrate them into DuckDuckGo's Search product while maintaining the privacy-first approach. • Deliver improvements to Duck.ai to help make it a competitive AI chat alternative for both free and paying users. • Implement sophisticated data processing pipelines that maintain search relevancy. • Lead complex projects end-to-end from scoping and execution to postmortem. • Formally mentor other engineers, supporting their career growth and the growth of the Backend Team.

• Work fully remotely from any of the 26+ eligible countries. • Receive transparent, flat compensation of $178,500 USD annually plus stock options — the same for all team members at the same professional level regardless of location. • Take paid parental leave. • Receive an office setup and co-working allowance. • Travel at least twice a year for an all-hands meetup and a team retreat. • Enjoy a flexible work arrangement with no core hours.

DuckDuckGo is a remote-first online protection company of 300+ team members on a mission to raise the standard of trust online. Founded in 2008 and profitable since 2014, annual revenue exceeds $100M USD. Millions use their browser on Mac, Windows, iOS, and Android, their search engine, and the DuckDuckGo subscription. They also offer private, useful AI through Duck.ai, which lets users chat privately with ChatGPT, Claude, and other AIs in one place.