Staff Software Engineer

Warby Parker is seeking a Staff Software Engineer to lead the development of our search, recommendations, and personalization platform. You'll architect and build the systems that help millions of customers discover their perfect eyewear, working at the intersection of large-scale data processing, machine learning, and distributed systems.

Reporting to the Senior Director of Engineering, you'll collaborate with Product Managers, Data Scientists, and cross-functional teams to design and deliver high-performance backend services that power product discovery across our retail and e-commerce channels. Your work will directly impact how customers find and engage with our products, requiring both technical excellence and strategic thinking to balance user experience, business objectives, and system scalability.

What you’ll do:

• Be the technical leader of teams designing and developing world-class backend applications that power our business
• Promote the adoption of new technologies that advance and evolve our product
• Tackle challenges of scale though solid engineering practices and creative problem solving
• Ensure your products are resilient and meet well-defined service level agreements with client stakeholders
• Lead code reviews and help maintain high standards of code quality
• Exceed quality expectations through a strong test-minded approach at every step of the SDLC
• Monitor your application and resolve issues and SLA violations quickly and efficiently

Who you are:

• You have a degree in Computer Science or related field, or equivalent work experience with 7+ years in professional software development
• Has demonstrated experience building and scaling search, recommendation, and personalization systems in production environments
• An expert in high-level languages such as Golang, Python, or C# with deep understanding of their ecosystems and best practices
• Has a mastery of domain modeling, system design, and data architecture patterns relevant to information retrieval and machine learning systems
• Proficient in cloud technologies (particularly AWS), distributed systems, and service-oriented architectures with focus on high-availability and low-latency services
• Understand the full stack of modern recommendation systems including data pipelines, feature engineering, model serving, and A/B testing frameworks
• Well-versed in agile work processes and comfortable breaking down complex search and ML initiatives to deliver value incrementally
• A clear, concise communicator who can translate technical concepts for cross-functional stakeholders and influence architectural decisions
• Possesses a strong belief in accountability and holds engineering teams to high standards around code quality, testing, observability, and performance
• Demonstrated ability to deliver complex software projects with a high level of autonomy while mentoring others
• Not on the Office of Inspector General's List of Excluded Individuals/Entities (LEIE)

Extra credit:

• Experience with AWS cloud infrastructure, particularly services like OpenSearch/Elasticsearch, SageMaker, Personalize, or Bedrock
• Background in machine learning engineering, including model training, evaluation, and deployment pipelines
• Experience with vector databases and semantic search technologies
• Familiarity with real-time streaming data processing and event-driven architectures

Some benefits of working at Warby Parker for full-time employees:

• Health, vision, and dental insurance
• Life and AD&D Insurance
• Flexible vacation policy
• Paid Holidays
• Retirement savings plan with a company match
• Parental leave (non-birthing parents included)
• Short-term disability
• Employee Assistance Program (EAP)
• Bereavement Support
• Education Reimbursement
• Free eyewear
• And more (just ask!)

Warby Parker is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We seek to promote equal opportunity for all applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, national origin, age, disability, military status, or any other applicable legally protected characteristic.  

About Us:

Warby Parker was founded with a mission: to inspire and impact the world with vision, purpose, and style.

We're constantly asking ourselves how we can do more and make a greater impact, and that starts by reimagining everything that a company and industry can be. We want to demonstrate that a business can scale while doing good in the world, without charging a premium for it. And we’ve learned that it takes creativity, empathy, and innovation to achieve that goal.

Since the day we launched in 2010, we’ve pioneered ideas, designed products, and developed technologies that help people see. We offer everything you need for happier eyes at a price that leaves you with money in your pocket, from designer-quality glasses and contacts to eye exams and vision tests, and you can meet us online, at our stores, or even in your home. Wherever and whenever you need it, we’re there to make exceptional vision care simple and accessible. (Delightful, too.)

Ultimately, we believe in vision for all, which is why for every pair of glasses or sunglasses we sell, a pair of glasses is distributed to someone in need through our Buy a Pair, Give a Pair program.