Job Description
Our Opportunity
Machine learning platform insights are fundamental to the Chewy customer experience and the Discovery teams staff of machine learning experts is the driving force behind those insights in search and recommendations. The team is looking for a Staff Software Engineer to join the team as a senior technical leader to drive scalable, reliable, and high-impact software systems.
As a Staff SWE, you will provide hands-on technical leadership across multiple initiatives, designing, building, and optimizing ML-driven distributed systems that power search recommendations and personalization on the Chewy website. You will collaborate closely with product engineering, machine learning, and data science teams to bring intelligence and automation into our marketing technology stack.
This role is both strategic and execution-focused; you will shape technical direction, mentor engineers, and contribute directly to the codebase to ensure system excellence and scalability. The ideal candidate is a strong systems thinker who thrives on solving complex problems at scale while fostering technical growth across the team.
What Youll Do
• Lead the design, implementation, and delivery of large-scale distributed software systems that enable customer insights and personalization in search and recommendations. • Partner with MLPlatform and Data Science teams to bring ML models into customer-facing applications. • Collaborate with Principal Engineer to define technical vision and architecture for key Discovery ML workflow and delivery systems, ensuring scalability, performance, and maintainability. • Collaborate with cross-functional teams to translate business objectives into robust, scalable engineering solutions. • Mentor and guide engineers across multiple levels, fostering technical growth and high-quality delivery. • Drive initiatives that improve developer productivity, system observability, and operational excellence.
What Youll Need
• Bachelors degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field. • 12+ years of professional software engineering experience with at least 2+ years in a Staff- or Principal-level technical leadership role. • Proven success designing and delivering high-performance distributed systems or large-scale workflows and services. • Strong proficiency in one or more modern programming languages (e.g., Java, Kotlin, Python). • Proficiency in Terraform and Jenkins. • Deep understanding of system design, architecture patterns, and cloud-based deployment (AWS, GCP, or Azure). • Experience integrating with or supporting ML pipelines, APIs, or data-driven applications. • Demonstrated ability to drive cross-team technical initiatives and influence architectural decisions. • Strong communication and collaboration skills with the ability to partner effectively across engineering, product, and data science teams.
Bonus
• Experience in e-commerce or retail. • Experience with modern MLOps. • Exposure to front-end or product-facing integration of ML features. • Experience with AWS Sagemaker and other ML platform tooling. • Experience working with large distributed datasets and ML feature engineering. • Prior experience mentoring and growing engineers into more senior technical roles. • Advanced degree (MS or PhD) in Computer Science or related field.
Compensation
The base salary range for this role is $166,000 - $265,500. The specific salary offered to a candidate may be influenced by various factors, including relevant experience, education, and work location. This position is also eligible for 401(k) and a new hire and annual equity grant. C08 positions may also be eligible for annual bonuses.
Benefits
We offer different types of insurance and benefits, including:
• Medical, Rx, vision, dental, life, disability, hospital, indemnity, critical illness, and accident insurance. • Parental leave, family services, benefits, backup dependent care, flexible spending accounts, telemedicine, pet adoption reimbursement, employee assistance program, and many discounts, including 10% off pet insurance and 20% off at Chewy.com.
Exempt Salary Team Members
Exempt salary team members have unlimited PTO, subject to manager approval. Team members will receive six paid holidays per year. Team members may be eligible for paid sick and family leave in compliance with applicable state and local regulations.
Chewy is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, ancestry, national origin, gender, citizenship, marital status, religion, age, disability, gender identity, results of genetic testing, veteran status, or any other legally protected characteristic. If you have a disability under the Americans with Disabilities Act or similar law and need an accommodation during the application process or to perform these job requirements, or if you need a religious accommodation, please contact CAAR@chewy.com.
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