Staff Software Engineer, Backend

About Crunchyroll

Founded by fans, Crunchyroll delivers the art and culture of anime to a passionate community. We super-serve over 100 million anime and manga fans across 200+ countries and territories, and help them connect with the stories and characters they crave. Whether that experience is online or in-person, streaming video, theatrical, games, merchandise, events and more, it’s powered by the anime content we all love.

Join our team, and help us shape the future of anime!

Crunchyroll, LLC is an independently operated joint venture between US-based Sony Pictures Entertainment, and Japan's Aniplex, a subsidiary of Sony Music Entertainment (Japan) Inc., both subsidiaries of Tokyo-based Sony Group Corporation.

About the role

As a Staff Software Engineer, you will be a technical leader within the Native Client & Frameworks Engineering organization. You'll drive architectural decisions, guide implementation best practices, and partner with client teams to ensure scalable and performant APIs tailored for our native applications. Your work will directly impact the fan experience across platforms like iOS, Android, Web, Roku, and more. As one of the senior-most engineers, your leadership will influence the direction of engineering systems that power our native clients.

You will...

• Lead design and development of scalable, maintainable backend services supporting native clients
• Serve as a key partner to client engineers, aligning backend support to evolving needs
• Champion high standards in API design, monitoring, testing, and deployment practices
• Mentor engineers on the team and contribute to technical decision-making across org boundaries
• Collaborate with product and design team members to shape features with backend considerations in mind

In the role of Staff Software Engineer, Backend, you will report to the Director of Engineering, Native Client & Framework. This is a hybrid role (3 days in the office per week).

About You

We get excited about candidates, like you, because...

• You have 12+ years of professional experience in backend software engineering, with experience leading complex projects end-to-end
• You have experience designing and building APIs that support server-driven UI (SDUI) architectures, enabling flexible and dynamic client rendering
• You can design APIs that allow clients to fetch only the data they need, aggregating and shaping data from multiple services into unified, optimized responses
• You have deep expertise in backend technologies such as TypeScript, Node.js, Serverless, and have designed systems using modern API design principles
• You embody a systems-thinking mindset and can influence architecture across multiple teams
• You have experience building backend systems tailored to the needs of native client teams, with an emphasis on latency, caching, and resiliency
• You have experience with event-driven architecture, serverless functions, and cloud-native development using services like AWS Lambda, SNS, SQS, DynamoDB, and messaging systems

About the Team

The Native Client & Frameworks team supports the development of Crunchyroll's native applications by providing scalable, reliable backend services that empower seamless fan experiences. Our work simplifies access to backend systems for client platforms, ensuring high performance, responsiveness, and consistency across devices. We collaborate closely with client engineers, product managers, and platform teams to deliver impactful solutions that reach millions of users around the world.

#LifeAtCrunchyroll #LI-Hybrid

About our Values

We want to be everything for someone rather than something for everyone and we do this by living and modeling our values in all that we do. We value

• Courage. We believe that when we overcome fear, we enable our best selves.
• Curiosity. We are curious, which is the gateway to empathy, inclusion, and understanding.
• Kaizen. We have a growth mindset committed to constant forward progress.
• Service. We serve our community with humility, enabling joy and belonging for others.

Our commitment to diversity and inclusion

Our mission of helping people belong reflects our commitment to diversity & inclusion. It's just the way we do business.

We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity at Crunchyroll. Pursuant to applicable law, we do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status.

Crunchyroll, LLC is an independently operated joint venture between US-based Sony Pictures Entertainment, and Japan's Aniplex, a subsidiary of Sony Music Entertainment (Japan) Inc., both subsidiaries of Tokyo-based Sony Group Corporation.

Questions about Crunchyroll’s hiring process? Please check out our Hiring FAQs: https://help.crunchyroll.com/hc/en-us/articles/360040471712-Crunchyroll-Hiring-FAQs

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