Sr. Software Engineer, Backend

Our Mission

Launched in 2012, Tinder® revolutionized how people meet, growing from 1 match to one billion matches in just two years. This rapid growth demonstrates its ability to fulfill a fundamental human need: real connection. Today, the app has been downloaded over 630 million times, leading to over 97 billion matches, serving approximately 50 million users per month in 190 countries and 45+ languages - a scale unmatched by any other app in the category. In 2024, Tinder won four Effie Awards for its first-ever global brand campaign, “It Starts with a Swipe”™"

Our Values

One Team, One Dream

We work hand-in-hand, building Tinder for our members. We succeed together when we work collaboratively across functions, teams, and time zones, and think outside the box to achieve our company vision and mission.

Own It

We take accountability and strive to make a positive impact in all aspects of our business, through ownership, innovation, and a commitment to excellence.

Never Stop Learning

We cultivate a culture where it’s safe to take risks. We seek out input, share honest feedback, celebrate our wins, and learn from our mistakes in order to continue improving.

Spark Solutions

We’re problem solvers, focusing on how to best move forward when faced with obstacles. We don’t dwell on the past or on the issues at hand, but instead look at how to stay agile and overcome hurdles to achieve our goals.

Embrace Our Differences

We are intentional about building a workplace that reflects the rich diversity of our members. By leveraging different perspectives and other ways of thinking, we build better experiences for our members and our team.

The Team:

The Essential Services team is responsible for building highly scalable and resilient systems that ensure continued business excellence at Tinder and unlock meaningful features to bring people together. Although we are a high-scale tech company, the member-to-engineer ratio is very high—making the level of impact each engineer gets to have at Tinder enormous.

As a Senior Backend Engineer at Tinder, you will have an outsized impact and ownership of the most critical services that enable and support the core experience of the Tinder app. We are deeply invested in challenging norms, constantly improving architecture design, exploring emergent tech and ideas, and leveraging new technologies in interesting ways to deliver an app that is widely known the world over.

You will be responsible for driving the next generation of platforms serving the most essential Tinder workflows, including real-time client-server communications, stateful message delivery, user state and profile management, and more.

Where you'll work:

This is a hybrid role and requires in-office collaboration twice per week. This position is located in Palo Alto, CA or San Francisco, CA.

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Our Values

• One Team, One Dream : We work hand-in-hand, building Tinder for our members. We succeed together when we work collaboratively across functions, teams, and time zones, and think outside the box to achieve our company vision and mission
• Own It: We take accountability and strive to make a positive impact in all aspects of our business, through ownership, innovation, and a commitment to excellence
• Never Stop Learning: We cultivate a culture where it’s safe to take risks. We seek out input, share honest feedback, celebrate our wins, and learn from our mistakes in order to continue improving
• Spark Solutions : We’re problem solvers, focusing on how to best move forward when faced with obstacles. We don’t dwell on the past or on the issues at hand, but instead look at how to stay agile and overcome hurdles to achieve our goals
•   Embrace Our Differences: We are intentional about building a workplace that reflects the rich diversity of our members. By leveraging different perspectives and other ways of thinking, we build better experiences for our members and our team

In this role, you will:

• Design, develop and operate scalable and resilient distributed services that run on Kubernetes or ECS
• Collaborate with various functional teams across Tinder on the expansion of our service platform
• Tightly maintain critical services with clear ownership to ensure the continued business excellence while effectively unlocking business enablement across pillars/teams
• Define key objectives, values and metrics connected to critical services, and monitor them in production
• Influence the team roadmap and product development
• Recruit, encourage, and develop other team members

You’ll need:

• Excellent knowledge and experience with a backend language like Java, Node.js , Go, C++
• Experience in developing REST micro services
• BS/MS in Computer Science or an equivalent field with 5+ years of industry work experience
• Excellent knowledge of Computer Science fundamentals with strong competencies in data structures, algorithms, and coding
• Strong designing and building distributed backend systems handling high volumes of traffic
• Experience in handling ambiguous business requirements with excellent prioritization, time management abilities, and a focus on execution
• Passion to tackle exciting engineering problems and make continuous improvements

Nice to have:

• Experience building GRPC micro services
• Experience with cloud computing systems such as AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud Platform
• Experience in design and development using NoSQL, such as DynamoDB or Cassandra
• Experience with Redis, ElasticSearch, Kafka
• Experience with Typescript
• Agile development methodology and CI/CD
• Experience with Docker containers
• Experience with reactive frameworks like Project Reactor or Vert.x
• Experience with A/B testing

As a full-time employee, you’ll enjoy:

• Unlimited PTO (with no waiting period), 10 annual Wellness Days
• Time off to volunteer and charitable donations matched up to $15,000 annually 
• Comprehensive health, vision, and dental coverage
• 100% 401(k) employer match up to 10%, Employee Stock Purchase Plan (ESPP)
• 100% paid parental leave (including for non-birthing parents), family forming benefits, and Milk Stork, which provides access to breast milk shipping for business travel, surrogacy, and employee relocation
• Investment in your development: mentorship through our MentorMatch program, access to 6,000+ online courses through Udemy, and an annual $3,000 stipend for your professional development
• Investment in your wellness: access to mental health support via Modern Health, BetterHelp, and Insight Timer; paid concierge medical membership, pet insurance, fitness membership subsidy, and commuter subsidy
• Free subscription to Tinder Gold

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$180,000 - $215,000 a year

The salary range for this position is $180,000 - $215,000. Factors such as scope and responsibilities of the position, candidate's work experience, education/training, job-related skills, internal peer equity, as well as market and business considerations may influence base pay offered. This salary range is reflective of a position based in Palo Alto or San Francisco. This salary will be subject to a geographic adjustment (according to a specific city and state), if an authorization is granted to work outside of the location listed in this posting. \n

Commitment to Inclusion

At Tinder, we don’t just accept difference, we celebrate it. We strive to build a workplace that reflects the rich diversity of our members around the world, and we value unique perspectives and backgrounds. Even if you don’t meet all the listed qualifications, we invite you to apply and show us how your skills could transfer. Tinder is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace where we welcome people of all sexes, gender identities, races, ethnicities, disabilities, and other lived experiences. Learn more here: 

If you require reasonable accommodation to complete a job application, pre-employment testing, or a job interview or to otherwise participate in the hiring process, please speak to your Talent Acquisition Partner directly.

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