Software Engineer 3, Backend, eBay Live

eBay • San Jose, CA

1d

About The Position

At eBay, we're more than a global ecommerce leader — we’re changing the way the world shops and sells. Our platform empowers millions of buyers and sellers in more than 190 markets around the world. We’re committed to pushing boundaries and leaving our mark as we reinvent the future of ecommerce for enthusiasts. Our customers are our compass, authenticity thrives, bold ideas are welcome, and everyone can bring their unique selves to work — every day. We're in this together, sustaining the future of our customers, our company, and our planet. Join a team of passionate thinkers, innovators, and dreamers — and help us connect people and build communities to create economic opportunity for all. eBay Live Engineering builds and operates the real-time platform behind eBay’s live shopping and interactive experiences. We combine low-latency video, interactive chat, and commerce actions with robust trust, safety, and analytics—at global scale. As a Backend Software Engineer at eBay, you’ll compose and construct distributed systems that are performant, reliable, and resilient. You’ll collaborate with modern technologies to deliver impactful, data-driven solutions that elevate eBay’s marketplace experience for users worldwide.

Requirements

• Experience & Education: Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or a related field (or equivalent practical experience), with 6+ years of backend software development experience building and operating large-scale, distributed web platforms and APIs.
• Backend & Platform Expertise: Proven expertise designing, developing, and maintaining data-intensive backend systems using Java and the Spring/Spring Boot ecosystem, with hands-on experience building robust APIs using REST and GraphQL and integrating asynchronous systems via Kafka, RabbitMQ, or similar messaging platforms.
• Data & Persistence: Strong experience designing and optimizing data-driven applications using relational databases, NoSQL stores, and search platforms such as Elasticsearch, including schema design, query optimization, and data consistency trade-offs.
• Distributed Systems & Scalability: Solid understanding of distributed systems principles, including scalability, reliability, fault tolerance, and performance optimization, with experience applying these concepts in production systems.
• Quality & Delivery: Experience delivering high-quality, production-ready software in Agile environments, with strong practices around test-driven development, CI/CD pipelines, code reviews, and operational readiness.
• Technical Ownership & Collaboration: Demonstrated ownership of complex features or subsystems, with the ability to collaborate effectively across cross-functional teams, make sound technical decisions, and align execution with business priorities.
• Growth & Continuous Learning: Passionate about continuous learning and backend technologies, contributing to knowledge sharing, mentoring peers, and staying current with emerging trends in distributed systems and backend engineering.

Nice To Haves

• Experience building real time, user facing systems (e.g., live streaming, chat, bidding, collaboration tools, gaming, or financial trading) where latency and errors materially impact user trust and outcomes.
• Background working on high traffic, event driven products (launches, flash sales, live events) with an understanding of infrastructure capacity planning, traffic spikes, and graceful degradation under load.
• Lead root-cause analysis and implement long-term fixes across platform to eliminate recurring issues and continuously elevate the customer experience.
• Websocket and FGQL experience a plus.

Responsibilities

• System Design & Build: Design, build, and maintain scalable, highly available, and fault-tolerant backend systems and microservices that power eBay’s global marketplace.
• End-to-End Ownership: Own subsystems end to end, managing the full software lifecycle including design, development, testing, deployment, observability, monitoring, and operational support (releases, on-call, incident response).
• Production-Quality Code: Translate product and technical requirements into clean, efficient, maintainable, and production-ready code with a strong focus on performance and scalability.
• Testing & Automation: Drive test-first development, automated test coverage, and continuous integration and delivery pipelines.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Partner closely with product managers, designers, and engineers to align technical decisions with business priorities and delivery goals.
• Code Quality & Standards: Conduct code reviews, maintain clear documentation, and advocate engineering best practices across teams.
• Measurable Engineering: Build testable, observable features that support evidence-based development and continuous improvement.
• Operational Excellence: Support an “always-on” platform through release management, on-call rotations, and incident response.
• Continuous Improvement: Evaluate design and implementation options, identify optimization opportunities, and raise the technical bar across projects and teams.

Benefits

• The total compensation package for this position may also include other elements, including a target bonus and restricted stock units (as applicable) in addition to a full range of medical, financial, and/or other benefits (including 401(k) eligibility and various paid time off benefits, such as PTO and parental leave).
• Details of participation in these benefit plans will be provided if an employee receives an offer of employment.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level