Backend Engineer - Media Streaming

SoundCloud empowers artists, tastemakers and fans to connect and share through music. Founded in 2007, SoundCloud is a creator-first platform helping artists build and grow their careers by providing them with the most advanced tools, services, and resources. With over 4x the music catalog of every other major streaming platform, spanning 40+ million artists across 190+ countries, SoundCloud is where emerging artists find their sound, hidden gems are discovered, and music culture is shaped in real time.

SoundCloud is looking for a software engineer to join our Media Streaming Team, with a mission to operate a media streaming platform at global scale, delivering the best possible audio experience to creators, listeners, and partners alike. We are handling petabytes of data and gigabytes per second of traffic. You will join a tightly-knit team where you will help shape how millions of people experience music.

Read about engineering at SoundCloud

Key Responsibilities

• Contribute to building, scaling and maintaining backend APIs and services that serve millions of users
• Collaborate closely with Android, iOS, web, and full-stack engineers to deliver seamless end-to-end media experiences
• Ensure performance, scalability, and maintainability of SoundCloud’s services
• Debug complex issues across systems, ensuring a consistent experience for users globally
• Participate in architecture discussions, code reviews, and roadmap planning
• Be part of on-call rotation to ensure the reliability and availability of SoundCloud’s systems

Experience and Background

• 4+ years of experience in building and operating large-scale backend or distributed systems
• Proficiency in Go
• Hands-on experience with infrastructure as code (IaC) using Terraform
• Experience with cloud-native environments such as AWS or GCP
• Experience with microservices, SQL/NoSQL databases, and container technologies
• You care about the craft of software engineering: continuous delivery, defensive programming, automated testing, clean code principles
• You have a strong sense of ownership and are comfortable navigating ambiguity in fast-moving environments
• You bring a humble attitude, an eagerness to help your colleagues, and a desire to do whatever it takes to make the team succeed

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience designing APIs and backend services consumed by multiple client platforms
• Experience with Scala or other functional programming languages
• Knowledge of API communication patterns (e.g., gRPC, GraphQL)
• Exposure to media streaming, playback, audio engineering or adjacent domains
• Familiarity with audio/video codecs, streaming protocols (HLS, DASH), and transport container technologies
• Experience using AI-assisted development tools and a strong intuition for their strengths, weaknesses, and emerging opportunities

About us

• We are a multinational company with offices in the US (New York and Los Angeles), Germany (Berlin), and the UK (London)
• We provide a flexible work culture that offers the opportunity to collaborate and connect in person at our offices as well as accommodating work from home
• We are deeply committed to ensuring diversity, equity and inclusion at all levels of our organization and fostering a community where everyone’s voice, perspective and experience is respected and heard.
• We believe a strong team is made by investing in employees through mentorship, workshops and enrichment opportunities

Benefits

• Interested in a gym membership, photography course or book? We have a Creativity and Wellness benefit!
• Employee Equity Plan
• Generous professional development allowance
• Flexible vacation and public holiday policy where you can take up to 35 days of PTO annually
• Various snacks, goodies, and 2 free lunches weekly when at the office

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at SoundCloud

SoundCloud is for everyone. Diversity and open expression are fundamental to our organization; they help us lead what’s next in music by understanding and empowering our creators and fans, no matter their identity. We acknowledge the challenges in the music industry, and strive to influence an inclusive culture where everyone can contribute respectfully and thrive, especially the historically marginalized communities that many of our creators, fans and SoundClouders identify with. We are dedicated to creating an inclusive environment at SoundCloud for everyone, regardless of gender identity, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, migration background, national origin, age, disability status, or care-giver status.

At SoundCloud you can find your community or elevate your allyship by joining a Diversity Resource Group. Diversity Resource Groups are employee-organized groups focused on supporting and promoting the interests of a particular underrepresented community in order to build a more inclusive culture at SoundCloud. Anyone can join, whether you share the identity or strive to be an ally.