Overview

We are a diverse team from around the world working together on a mission to make DuckDuckGo the world’s most trusted search engine, and we want your help!

Join us as a backend engineer, and become part of the team creating the technology that powers the DuckDuckGo search experience.

As part of our Backend Engineering team, you will be collaborating with team members at all levels to identify and close major gaps in the search engine. Examples of projects you might work on include building out features, like improved venue search, or running experiments to improve the usability of our search results. Over time you will be directly responsible for features on the search engine results page (SERP) and take ownership over product maintenance and improvement.

We are a remote company, meaning our employees can work wherever they want around the world. We empower our team with personal autonomy on team projects. That means you have to be self-directed and self-motivated to succeed. If that seems awesome and you like the idea of our core values — Build trust, Question assumptions, and Validate direction — you’ll fit right in.

What you will do:

  • Lead development of search projects by taking vague problems, scoping them into high impact projects, and execute them against a set of success criteria
  • Take responsibility for solving product issues – both big and small
  • Implement and/or create algorithms to improve the content we present on the SERP
  • Collaborate with peers on product brainstorms, technical design discussions, pair programming sessions and code reviews.
  • Write pragmatic, testable code that works consistently and is performant.

What we are looking for:

  • Significant backend engineering experience
  • Expertise working on at least one large application
  • Effective project management skills
  • Ability to develop and use complicated data structures and algorithms. This includes understanding the fundamentals, as well as navigating and improving existing code (ours is mostly written with Perl).
  • Creative problem-solvers and risk-takers. You like to take initiative in pushing a project forward but know when to get others involved.
  • Strong communication skills. You can validate and communicate your decisions clearly.

Other things to know:

  • We are a small, remote team in different time zones and communicate with a variety of tools throughout the day. You should feel comfortable with the intricacies of this type of work situation.
  • Sometimes we meet up! You can expect to travel at least 2x a year: once for our all-hands meetup and another for a team retreat (each ~4-5 days)
  • We want to have a major impact on raising the standard of trust online. To do this we believe in a focused approach, with company-wide objectives, and with each team member working on a single top priority at a time.
  • Our work philosophy is built upon empowered project management. All team members have opportunities to run projects.
  • All projects are run transparently, and we encourage everyone to participate in areas of interest throughout the company. Anyone and everyone can (and should) ask questions and offer feedback around the product and internal projects.
  • We try to exemplify our values (build trust, question assumptions, and validate direction) in everything we do.

If you think you might thrive in this environment, we would love to hear from you using the application below.

About DuckDuckGo

DuckDuckGo is a general purpose search engine that doesn't track its users. Our privacy policy and our community driven "Instant Answers" have helped put us on the map as a default option in browsers like Apple Safari and Mozilla Firefox. We believe in real privacy, smarter search and less clutter. Try DuckDuckGo today!

Join us in raising the standard of trust online. At DuckDuckGo our mission is to be the world's most trusted search engine. We are a remote team with contributors from around the world, including the US, UK, Canada, Italy, Japan, and more.

We have a unique hiring process that includes contracting with us first to see if there is a good fit. We are happy to work through the process on a flexible timeline around your current schedule. To learn more about our hiring process and our internal culture click here and get started on your application below.

Joining our small team is a unique opportunity to work with others and make a significant impact. We are looking forward to hearing from you.