Staff engineer

About The Company

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

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.

When it comes to workplace structure, 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 employees, regardless of their location.

So what are we looking for in new team members? Well, we hire for “GRIT”. The textbook definition of GRIT is demonstrating the intersection of passion and perseverance towards long term goals. At Scribd, we are inspired by the potential that this can unlock, and ask each of our employees to pursue a GRIT-ty approach to their work. In a tactical sense, GRIT is also a handy acronym that outlines the standards we hold ourselves and each other to. Here’s what that means for you: we’re looking for someone who showcases the ability to set and achieve G oals, achieve R esults within their job responsibilities, contribute I nnovative ideas and solutions, and positively influence the broader T eam through collaboration and attitude.

About The Team

Core Infrastructure designs, operates, and evolves Scribd’s AWS platform. We build the paved roads—infrastructure orchestration, networking, observability, caching, relational databases, and data platforms—so product teams can move fast with confidence.

Scribd is seeking an Infrastructure Engineer to join the Core Infrastructure team and build the foundations that take Scribd into the future. Each day offers opportunities to deliver and to learn.

We value inclusion and diverse perspectives. We review infrastructure changes in code, define SLOs, and run blameless postmortems; we build paved roads with guardrails for speed and reliability. If you don’t meet every single requirement but are excited about the role, we encourage you to apply.

About The Role

You will architect and operate a modern, service‑oriented AWS environment and partner with service owners as we deepen our AWS‑centric model. Your work will improve reliability, performance, and observability for a suite of products used by 250+ million people each month.

• Design, build, and operate core platform components (ECS/EKS, networking, load balancing, logging, metrics, tracing, caching, and storage)
• Provide architectural guidance, operational support, and capacity planning for Amazon Aurora (MySQL‑ and PostgreSQL‑compatible) clusters
• Define SLOs and actionable alerting; reduce MTTR and alert noise through automation and better signals
• Ship infrastructure as code (Terraform) with reviewed modules, tests, and CI/CD
• Run migrations and modernizations (e.g., containerization, service patterns, data platform upgrades) with clear runbooks and rollout plans
• Partner with product teams to shift operational ownership; coach teams on runbooks, dashboards, and reliability best practices
• Improve cost efficiency, performance, and security by design (least‑privilege IAM, secret management, and network boundaries)
• Participate in an on‑call rotation and lead blameless postmortems that drive lasting fixes
• Contribute to a paved‑road developer experience: documentation, templates, and office hours
  
  

Required Skills

• 7+ years operating production infrastructure on AWS, with strong knowledge of distributed systems, multi‑tier architectures, and application security
• Data platforms: designing and operating SQL databases (e.g., Amazon Aurora), NoSQL/search (e.g., Elasticsearch/OpenSearch), and key‑value caches (e.g., Redis/ElastiCache)
  • Schema design for high‑throughput applications
  • Database performance tuning and cluster scaling experience
• Proficiency with containers and schedulers (Docker with ECS and/or Kubernetes)
• Hands‑on Terraform and Git‑based workflows, including tests for infrastructure changes
• Observability: metrics/logs/traces, SLO‑based alerting, and incident response fundamentals
• Networking fundamentals: TCP/IP, routing, load balancing (L4/L7)
• Ability to write clean, maintainable code for automation, monitoring, and tooling in at least one language such as Python, Ruby, Rust, or Go
• Clear communicator and mentor; comfortable leading deep technical design discussions across teams and mentoring junior engineers
  
  

Desired Skills

• Working knowledge of ProxySQL, query processing, and routing
• Experience with Delta Lake and S3 (data lake patterns, partitioning, lifecycle policies)
• Experience improving 24/7 on‑call health: reducing pages, building automation, tightening feedback loops
• Pragmatic knowledge of AWS platform services and their trade‑offs
• Interest in service‑oriented architectures: availability, eventual consistency, and fault tolerance
  
  

At Scribd, your base pay is one part of your total compensation package and is determined within a range. Our pay ranges are based on the local cost of labor benchmarks for each specific role, level, and geographic location. San Francisco is our highest geographic market in the United States. In the state of California, the reasonably expected salary range is between $167,000 [minimum salary in our lowest geographic market within California] to $260,500 [maximum salary in our highest geographic market within California].

In the United States, outside of California, the reasonably expected salary range is between $137,500 [minimum salary in our lowest US geographic market outside of California] to $247,500 [maximum salary in our highest US geographic market outside of California].

In Canada, the reasonably expected salary range is between $175,000 CAD[minimum salary in our lowest geographic market] to $231,500 CAD[maximum salary in our highest geographic market].

We carefully consider a wide range of factors when determining compensation, including but not limited to experience; job-related skill sets; relevant education or training; and other business and organizational needs. The salary range listed is for the level at which this job has been scoped. In the event that you are considered for a different level, a higher or lower pay range would apply. This position is also eligible for a competitive equity ownership, and a comprehensive and generous benefits package.

Working at Scribd, inc.

Are you currently based in a location where Scribd is able to employ you?

Employees must have their primary residence in or near one of the following cities. This includes surrounding metro areas or locations within a typical commuting distance:

United States

Atlanta | Austin | Boston | Dallas | Denver | Chicago | Houston | Jacksonville | Los Angeles | Miami | New York City | Phoenix | Portland | Sacramento | Salt Lake City | San Diego | San Francisco | Seattle | Washington D.C.

Canada

Ottawa | Toronto | Vancouver

Mexico

Mexico City

Benefits, Perks, And Wellbeing At Scribd

• Benefits/perks listed may vary depending on the nature of your employment with Scribd and the geographical location where you work.
• Healthcare Insurance Coverage (Medical/Dental/Vision): 100% paid for employees
• 12 weeks paid parental leave
• Short-term/long-term disability plans
• 401k/RSP matching
• Onboarding stipend for home office peripherals + accessories
• Learning & Development allowance
• Learning & Development programs
• Quarterly stipend for Wellness, WiFi, etc.
• Mental Health support & resources
• Free subscription to the Scribd Inc. suite of products
• Referral Bonuses
• Book Benefit
• Sabbaticals
• Company-wide events
• Team engagement budgets
• Vacation & Personal Days
• Paid Holidays (+ winter break)
• Flexible Sick Time
• Volunteer Day
• Company-wide Employee Resource Groups and programs that foster an inclusive and diverse workplace.
• Access to AI Tools: We provide free access to best-in-class AI tools, empowering you to boost productivity, streamline workflows, and accelerate bold innovation.
  
  

Want to learn more about life at Scribd? We want our interview process to be accessible to everyone. You can inform us of any reasonable adjustments we can make to better accommodate your needs by emailing [email protected] about the need for adjustments at any point in the interview process.

Scribd is committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, disability status, or any other characteristic protected by law. We encourage people of all backgrounds to apply, and believe that a diversity of perspectives and experiences create a foundation for the best ideas. Come join us in building something meaningful.