Senior Backend Engineer

DuckDuckGo is an online protection company and remote-first team of over 300 employees focused on raising the standard of trust online. Founded in 2008 and profitable since 2014, the company generates over $100 million in annual revenue and provides products including a privacy-focused browser for Mac, Windows, iOS, and Android, a search engine, subscription services, and private AI chat tools such as Duck.ai.

• 7+ years of professional experience, primarily focused on backend systems powering consumer-facing products
• Product acumen to reason about technical tradeoffs in terms of user impact
• Familiarity with AI agent tooling including evaluation frameworks, RAG pipelines, and prompt engineering
• Fundamental understanding of complex data structures and algorithms, with ability to develop and improve solutions
• Data-driven analytical skills for decision-making, stakeholder alignment, and experiment-oriented delivery
• Solid project management abilities
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills to validate and articulate decisions
• Previous experience leading and mentoring experienced engineers to support their career goals

• Lead complex backend projects across company-wide objectives using Perl, Go, and Node.js
• Implement AI-assisted answers and integrate them into the Search product while maintaining privacy-first principles
• Deliver improvements to Duck.ai to create a competitive AI chat alternative for free and paying users
• Implement sophisticated data processing pipelines to maintain search relevancy
• Collaborate remotely with peers to solve product issues impacting the all-in-one privacy solution
• Mentor and support the career growth of other engineers within the Backend Team

• Candidate must pass a background check as a condition of joining
• Attendance at meetings on camera via video conferencing is required
• Expect to travel at least twice a year for all-hands meetup and team retreat
• Flexible work arrangement with no core hours but average 40 hours per week commitment
• By applying, candidates confirm accuracy of information and acknowledge consequences of falsification
• Use of AI technology is employed in the hiring process for reviewing and summarizing applications and evaluations
• Company prohibits discrimination and harassment on multiple protected bases
• Reasonable accommodation for medical conditions or disability available upon request
• Eligible locations include remote workers from specified countries including USA, Canada, UK, and others