Senior Software Engineer, Web API Platform

Senior Software Engineer, Web API Platform

Join us as a Senior Software Engineer, Web API Platform at Scribd, Inc.

At Scribd Inc. (pronounced “scribbed”), our mission is to spark human curiosity. We create a world of stories and knowledge, democratize the exchange of ideas and information, and empower collective expertise through our four products:
Everand, Scribd, Slideshare, and Fable.

We support a culture where our employees can be real and be bold; where we debate and commit as we embrace plot twists; and where every employee is empowered to take action as we prioritize the customer.

We believe in balancing individual flexibility and community connections. It’s through our flexible work benefit, Scribd Flex, that employees – in partnership with their manager – can choose the daily work‑style that best suits their individual needs. A key tenet of Scribd Flex is our prioritization of intentional in‑person moments to build collaboration, culture, and connection. For this reason, occasional in‑person attendance is required for all Scribd Inc.

employees, regardless of their location.

We hire for “GRIT” – the intersection of passion and perseverance towards long‑term goals. We look for individuals who showcase the ability to set and achieve Goals, Results, Innovative ideas, and a Team‑positive attitude.

The Web Platform team is part of our Developer Platform organization and supports our broader Web Modernization efforts across the company.

Our mission is to help product teams move faster by providing a scalable, well‑designed API foundation that supports modern web architectures.

We work across the organization to reduce coupling, improve developer experience, and establish durable integration patterns between frontend experiences and backend systems.

We operate with high autonomy and a long‑term mandate. The platform we build will shape how teams develop, ship, and evolve our web products over time.

We are hiring a Senior Software Engineer, Web API Platform to help establish a company‑wide API platform that accelerates web modernization at Scribd.

In this role, you will design, build, and own new product‑facing web APIs that span our full web product surface across Scribd and Everand.

These APIs will serve as the primary interface between modern web applications and existing backend systems, enabling teams to evolve toward more scalable, maintainable frontend architectures with confidence.

• Design, build, and own product‑facing web APIs across Scribd and Everand.
• Establish clear contracts, predictable performance, and strong observability to improve developer experience.
• Own API design and implementation from initial design through production, iteration, and long‑term maintenance.
• Develop integration patterns, guide API usage, and ensure the platform scales with real‑world data volumes and access patterns.

Key Attributes

• Strong ownership mindset, owning API design and implementation from initial design through production, iteration, and long‑term maintenance.
• Pragmatic approach to system design, balancing ideal architecture with real‑world constraints.
• Ability to design performance‑aware APIs with intentional constraints that scale safely.
• Strong collaborator who works with frontend & backend teams toward better performance and integration outcomes.
• Long‑term perspective on maintainability, extensibility, and developer experience.

• 6+ years of professional software engineering experience, with a strong backend or platform focus.
• Proven experience designing APIs for high‑volume or data‑intensive product workflows.
• Experience implementing and integrating APIs with a Ruby on Rails application.
• Familiarity with modern API paradigms (e.g., REST, Graph
  
  QL, gRPC), including their performance and operational tradeoffs.
• Experience with query patterns, caching, pagination, and common performance pitfalls.
• Experience designing APIs with explicit contracts, versioning, and testing strategies.
• Experience working with modern web frontends (e.g., React, Next.js, or similar).
• Strong communication skills and experience championing API…