Senior Software Engineer; Distributed Systems

Overview

We are Rokt, a hyper-growth ecommerce leader. Rokt is the global leader in ecommerce, unlocking real-time relevance in the moment that matters most. Rokt’s AI Brain and ecommerce Network powers billions of transactions connecting hundreds of millions of customers, and is trusted to do this by the world’s leading companies.

We are a team of builders helping smart businesses find innovative ways to meet customer needs and generate incremental revenue. Leading companies drive 10-50% of additional revenue—and often all their profits—from the extra products or services they sell. This economic edge unleashes a world of possibilities for growth and innovation.

At Rokt, we practice transparency in career paths and compensation. Rokt believes in transparency, which is why we have a well-defined career ladder with transparent compensation and clear career paths based on competency and ability. Rokt’stars constantly strive to raise the bar, pushing the envelope of what is possible.

A fixed annual salary of $170,000 - $235,000, an employee equity plan grant, and world-class benefits. Equity grants are issued in good faith, subject to company policies, board approval, and individual eligibility.

We are looking for a Senior Software Engineer with deep experience in distributed systems to join our team in New York City. You will architect, build, and scale backend services that power critical systems across Rokt's ecommerce platform. You’ll work on systems that demand low latency, high throughput, and rock-solid reliability—while leveraging AI tools to accelerate development, improve resilience, and increase autonomy.

As an engineer, you will drive projects from design through delivery, mentoring others and contributing to our engineering best practices. You’ll partner cross-functionally with Product, ML, and SRE to ensure performance and scalability as Rokt continues to scale globally.
What You’ll Do

• Design and implement distributed systems and backend APIs that scale to billions of transactions per year.
• Own architectural decisions and contribute to system design reviews and incident root cause analyses.
• Drive performance optimizations and refactors to improve system reliability, latency, and cost.
• Leverage AI/ML frameworks and tools (e.g. Git Hub Copilot, Datadog AI, etc.) to speed up delivery and reduce toil.
• Mentor junior engineers and set technical direction for the team on scalability and observability best practices.
• Collaborate with cross-functional stakeholders to align engineering delivery with business objectives.

• At least 5 years of experience building production-grade distributed systems at scale.
• Proficiency in Go, Java, or similar backend languages, and strong understanding of concurrency, data structures, and algorithms.
• Experience designing APIs
• Strong command of system observability, incident response, and fault-tolerant architectures.
• Familiarity with cloud-native stacks (AWS, Kubernetes, Terraform) and CI/CD tooling.
• Effective communicator and mentor; able to lead discussions and influence design decisions.
• Excited by Rokt’s AI-first culture, and eager to raise the bar across architecture, delivery, and engineering culture.

• Build the Future of AI in Ecommerce: Be at the forefront of AI-driven transformation in a company that’s pioneering how brands engage customers in the “moment that matters” during online transactions.
• Hyper-Growth = Fast Progression: Rokt is a rapidly growing tech leader, which means huge opportunities for your career advancement, learning, and taking on bigger responsibilities quickly.
• Culture of Builders: Work with a smart, humble, and bold team that shares a “builder” DNA – we love to innovate, take risks, and turn ambitious ideas into tangible results. We win as a team and learn from every experiment.
• Ownership & Impact: Every Rokt’star (employee) has a voice and real equity in the company. You’ll have autonomy to make decisions, drive projects, and see the direct impact of your work on millions of users.
• World-Class Benefits & Support: Join a people-first culture with transparent career paths, continuous development, and great…