Senior Software Engineer, Core Platform

The job

LIVE Employer public job feed (private-sector employer) Source: the employer's public careers feed · Data: listed 2026-06-23

Job description

We are looking for a Senior Engineer to deepen our team's knowledge in ingestion, processing, storage, and distribution of media at global scale.  You’ll help us build, operate, and scale the media platform that powers Reddit for hundreds of millions of users around the world.

As a Senior Engineer on this team, you’ll be a technical coach and mentor. You’ll draw on your technical expertise to build Reddit’s next generation media platform and to ensure all of our systems have high uptime and strong performance while working with your team to build a roadmap to match the needs of an ever growing engineering organization and to fuel the next wave of Reddit’s growth. 

Additionally, as part of The Core Systems & Libraries team you’ll design, build, and run many critical foundational services, platforms, and libraries (media and non-media) that all engineering teams at Reddit rely on to serve our users and partners. 

Join us and help build the future of Reddit!

You will:

• Develop and design new and innovative solutions to scaling Reddit
• Build platform API projects that scale to the rest of the organization
• Mentor and coach more junior engineers on your direct team to achieve our mission
• Build, deliver, and operate services that scale to millions of transactions per second at 5+ 9’s of availability
• Help us to optimize Reddit’s media experience for hundreds of millions of users across the world.

You have:

• Strong software development experience in one or more general purpose programming languages; Python, Go or similar
• 5+ years of experience with large-scale, mission-critical distributed systems.
• Excellent communication skills. You partner effectively with teams in a fully remote environment and discuss complex topics with technical and non-technical audiences.
• Experienced with GraphQL, gRPC, Thrift, Protobuf, and the ability to design and implement maintainable APIs.
• Familiarity with Kubernetes and cloud platforms (AWS, GCP)
• History of building clean, maintainable, and well-tested code.
• Media delivery expertise from back end systems to the user.  Experience optimizing media performance, scalability, and delivery by improving different stages of the stack.
• Familiarity with media processing and global media distribution; image processing and delivery technologies such as image scaling, cropping, and image formats like progressive JPEG, WebP, HTTP Live Streaming (HLS), MPEG-DASH, MP4, and other streaming protocols, as well as video compression standards (H.264, H.265/HEVC, VP9, AV1), and distribution from user origin, through CDN, to the user experience.

Benefits:

• Comprehensive Healthcare Benefits and Income Replacement Programs
• 401k with Employer Match
• Global Benefit programs that fit your lifestyle, from workspace to professional development to caregiving support
• Family Planning Support
• Gender-Affirming Care
• Mental Health & Coaching Benefits
• Flexible Vacation & Paid Volunteer Time Off
• Generous Paid Parental Leave 

#LI-Remote

Pay Transparency:

This job posting may span more than one career level.

In addition to base salary, this job is eligible to receive equity in the form of restricted stock units, and depending on the position offered, it may also be eligible to receive a commission. Additionally, Reddit offers a wide range of benefits to U.S.-based employees, including medical, dental, and vision insurance, 401(k) program with employer match, generous time off for vacation, and parental leave. To learn more, please visit https://www.redditinc.com/careers/.

To provide greater transparency to candidates, we share base salary ranges for all US-based job postings regardless of state. We set standard base pay ranges for all roles based on function, level, and country location, benchmarked against similar stage growth companies. Final offer amounts are determined by multiple factors including, skills, depth of work experience and relevant licenses/credentials, and may vary from the amounts listed below.

In select roles and locations, the interviews will be recorded, transcribed and summarized by artificial intelligence (AI). You will have the opportunity to opt out of recording, transcription and summarization prior to any scheduled interviews.

During the interview, we will collect the following categories of personal information: Identifiers, Professional and Employment-Related Information, Sensory Information (audio/video recording), and any other categories of personal information you choose to share with us. We will use this information to evaluate your application for employment or an independent contractor role, as applicable.  We will not sell your personal information or disclose it to any third party for their marketing purposes.  We will delete any recording of your interview promptly after making a hiring decision.  For more information about how we will handle your personal information, including our retention of it, please refer to our Candidate Privacy Policy for Potential Employees and Contractors.

Reddit is proud to be an equal opportunity employer, and is committed to building a workforce representative of the diverse communities we serve.  Reddit is committed to providing reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities and disabled veterans in our job application procedures. If, due to a disability, you need an accommodation during the interview process, please let your recruiter know.

Explore around this job

Field: Technology Sub-niche: Software engineering All jobs at Reddit Jobs in Illinois Jobs in Chicago, IL Chicago city guide Illinois state guide Cook County economy

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About the role

This is a — role in the Technology field (Software engineering) at Reddit.

We could not match this job title to one occupation in the official wage statistics, so no pay estimate is shown. Pay is not in the source listing; ask the employer for the range and compare in the 240 job niches.

Does the pay work here? (estimate)

How to prepare and behave

This is editorial guidance, not information from the employer.

• Read the whole description and match your examples to its requirements; use the same words the posting uses where they are true for you.
• Research the employer before the interview: what it does, who its customers are and recent news; prepare two or three questions about the work.
• Arrive early (or log in early for a video call), dress one step above the daily dress code, and test your camera and audio beforehand.
• Answer with short stories: the situation, what you did and the result. Give numbers when you have them and never invent them.
• Be honest about gaps; say what you did to learn and how fast you can close them.
• Ask about the team, the first 90 days, how success is measured and the schedule; do not open with salary and time off.
• When pay comes up, know the market range for the occupation and your lowest acceptable offer before you answer; ask for the full package in writing.
• Send a short thank-you message within a day, mentioning one thing you discussed.
• Have code, data work or projects you can show, and be ready to think aloud: many technical interviews test how you reason, not only the answer.

Know your rights as a candidate and an employee:

• U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission: prohibited employment practices
• U.S. Department of Labor: Wage and Hour Division
• CareerOneStop (U.S. Department of Labor): job search help, interview tips and resumes
• USA.gov: avoiding job scams

The city

The job is in Chicago, IL. Below is what the official statistics say about living and working there.

How Chicago compares. Among the 100 largest places in Illinois, Chicago is #1 by population, #96 for homeownership (#1 = highest), #87 for long commutes (#1 = fewest), #22 for remote work (#1 = most). Its county, Cook County, is #2 of 102 counties for average pay ($86,931).

The place in numbers

Chicago has 2,711,226 residents (ACS 2020–2024), about 21.4% of the population of Illinois. It covers 228 square miles of land, which works out to roughly 11,904 people per square mile. The median age is 35.8, 8% younger than the state median (35.8 against 39.0).

Housing

The median gross rent is $1,440 a month (rent plus utilities), 13% above the state median ($1,440 against $1,274). Over a year that is 22.2% of the median household income. US housing guidance treats housing as affordable when it takes 30% of income or less, so the typical household is under that line. The median home value is $334,100, which is 4.3 times the median household income ($77,902). 46.0% of households own their home, 31% below the state average (46.0% against 67.1%). A low ownership share points to a rental-heavy market with more apartments and shorter stays.

Work and pay

The Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN metropolitan area has 4,513,280 jobs in the BLS wage survey, and the median pay across all occupations is $54,720 a year, 7% above the national median ($54,720 against $50,980). The biggest occupation groups are office and administrative support (488,940 jobs, median $48,840); transportation and material moving (484,580 jobs, median $45,920); management (404,010 jobs, median $131,890). The area is most specialised in management (1.2 times) and transportation and material moving (1.2 times), where the share of workers is above the national share. The best-paying groups with at least 5,000 jobs are management ($131,890) and legal ($112,440). In 2026M09 the unemployment rate of Cook County was 4.7%. 67.5% of residents aged 16 and over are in the labour force. The city lies in Cook County; its jobs, pay by industry and GDP are on the county page.

Getting around

Among workers, 44.8% drive alone, 17.7% use public transit, 5.8% walk, 21.0% work from home. 27.5% of workers commute 45 minutes or more, 39% above the state average (27.5% against 19.7%). Remote work is more common than in the state as a whole, which widens the set of employers a resident can work for without moving.

People and education

44.3% of adults aged 25 and over hold a bachelor's degree or higher, 17% above the state share (44.3% against 37.9%). 20.9% of residents were born outside the United States, 42% above the state share (20.9% against 14.8%). The poverty rate is 16.8%, 43% above the state rate (16.8% against 11.8%).

Climate

The warmest month is Aug, averaging 73°F (22.6°C), and the coolest is Jan at 28°F (-2.5°C). About 981 mm (39 inches) of precipitation falls in a year; May is the wettest month (117 mm) and Jan the driest (48 mm). These values come from NASA satellite-based climatology on a grid of about 50 km, so they describe the wider area, not a weather station in the city.

Nearby cities to compare

Closest cities in this guide: Cicero (4 miles, rent 20% lower); Berwyn (5 miles, rent 16% lower); Oak Park (6 miles, rent 11% higher); Burbank (8 miles, rent 12% lower). Rent differences are against Chicago; use the Compare tab to put any two cities side by side.

Full guide to Chicago →Illinois guideAll jobs in Chicago

Official links for Chicago

• Census Bureau data profile for Chicago
• Official state website: illinois.gov
• BLS Economy at a Glance: Illinois

These links go to official sources and open in a new window. The first one is the government's or company's own site as listed in Wikidata (property "official website"); check it before relying on it.

Where to live

CITY Official statistics Source: U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 2020–2024 5-year (via Census Reporter) · Data: ACS 2020–2024

Places within 50 miles (straight line) of Chicago, IL that have a guide, with what living there costs. No pay estimate is shown because the title did not match one occupation.

Career paths

We could not match this title to one occupation, so here are the other sub-niches in Technology, where your skills may carry over:

Cybersecurity (713) Data, analytics and AI (3366) Cloud, IT and infrastructure (1040) Product management (836)

Distances

CITY Calculation (straight line) Source: U.S. Census Bureau Gazetteer (coordinates) · Data: 2024

How far Chicago, IL is from the 20 largest US cities, in straight-line miles (not driving distance). Click a column to sort.

Nearby cities with open jobs (within 120 miles)

The employer

Reddit is the employer in this listing. See all its open jobs here →

We do not hold headcount or revenue for this employer. Check its careers site and, if it is listed on a stock exchange, its public filings (SEC EDGAR search).

What it is like to work at a company (culture, schedules, benefits) is not in the source data, so we do not describe it. Read the description and ask the questions under "How to prepare".

Other open jobs at Reddit

Similar jobs

Same sub-niche: Software engineering

More jobs in Chicago, IL

All Software engineering jobs → · All Technology sub-niches →

FAQ

What is the Senior Software Engineer, Core Platform job at Reddit?

A private-sector role in technology (software engineering) listed 139 days ago. The full description is on this page and on the employer's page.

Where is this job?

Chicago, IL.

How do I apply?

Use the "View this job and apply on the employer's page" button. AtiveSite does not receive applications.

How much does it pay?

The listing does not publish pay, and we could not match the title to one official occupation.

What is the cost of living there?

Median rent in Chicago is $1,440 a month and median household income $77,902 (ACS 2020–2024).

How old is this listing?

It was posted on 2026-06-23 (139 days ago). Jobs older than 90 days are not shown.

Are there similar jobs?

Yes: browse software engineering jobs in Illinois.

Sources and terms

• Job data: Reddit careers page public feed (listing dated 2026-06-23). The job disappears from this site when it disappears from the source.
• Wages and projections: BLS OEWS (May 2025) and Employment Projections 2025–35.
• City and county figures: Census Bureau ACS 2020–2024, BEA, BLS QCEW and LAUS, NASA POWER climatology; distances from Census Gazetteer coordinates.

AtiveSite is not affiliated with or endorsed by the employer or any government agency, and does not process applications. Verify every detail with the employer before acting.

Sources

• BLS OEWS (wages and employment by occupation, May 2025)
• BLS Employment Projections 2025–35
• BLS Local Area Unemployment Statistics
• BLS JOLTS
• BLS State and Metro Area Employment
• Census Bureau American Community Survey (via Census Reporter)
• BEA GDP by state and Regional Price Parities
• IRS 2026 tax adjustments
• U.S. Department of Labor, minimum wage by state
• Tax Foundation state income tax rates 2026
• USAJOBS
• USCIS
• U.S. Department of State, visas
• NASA POWER climatology
• GeoNames / Census Gazetteer (coordinates)