{"id":2120347,"url":"https://alion.io/job/depop-backend-engineer-search-and-retrieval","title":"Backend Engineer - Search and Retrieval","company":{"id":51473,"name":"Depop","domain":"depop.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/depop","size_band":"501-1000","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Workday","truth_index":{"grade":"B","score":81,"open_postings":4,"ghost_share":0,"stale_share":0.75,"repost_share":0,"time_to_fill_p50_days":26,"computed_at":"2026-10-25T05:49:26Z"}},"role":"Backend","role_family":"Backend","seniority":null,"employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"remote","remote_scope":"stated_countries","remote_scope_basis":"board_field","remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["London, United Kingdom"],"countries":["GB"],"hiring_countries":["GB"],"hiring_countries_total":1,"salary":null,"salary_estimate":{"min_usd":67000,"max_usd":166000,"period":"year","method":"role_country_seniority_unknown","sample_n":404},"experience_years_min":null,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"Agile","optional":false},{"name":"Amazon Redshift","optional":false},{"name":"Apache Kafka","optional":false},{"name":"AWS","optional":false},{"name":"CI/CD","optional":false},{"name":"DynamoDB","optional":false},{"name":"ElasticSearch","optional":false},{"name":"Gemini","optional":false},{"name":"Java","optional":false},{"name":"Machine Learning","optional":false},{"name":"OpenSearch","optional":false},{"name":"PostgreSQL","optional":false},{"name":"Python","optional":false},{"name":"RabbitMQ","optional":false},{"name":"Scala","optional":false}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-09-29T00:00:00Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-09-29","last_verified_at":"2026-10-25T07:20:48Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":26,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":26},"description":"Company Description\nDepop is a peer-to-peer circular fashion marketplace where anyone can buy, sell and discover secondhand fashion. Our mission is simple: to make fashion circular by making secondhand as exciting and rewarding as buying new.\nFounded in 2011, Depop’s diverse community has helped move resale into the mainstream, where buying secondhand is no longer an alternative, but how people of different ages now engage with fashion. Today, more than 56 million registered users come to Depop to find great value, express their own personal style and give clothes a longer life. We believe that everything you want already exists, and our role is to help people discover it.\nPowered by a team of over 500 people, our company is headquartered in London, with offices in New York. In 2021, Depop became a wholly-owned subsidiary of Etsy - the global marketplace for unique and creative goods - and continues to operate as a standalone company. For more information, visit www.depop.com\nWe aim to create an inclusive environment where everyone is welcome, no matter who they are or where they’re from. Just as our platform connects people globally, we believe our workplace should reflect the diversity of the communities we serve. We thrive on the power of different perspectives and experiences, knowing they drive innovation and bring us closer to our users.\nWe’re proud to be an equal opportunity employer, providing employment opportunities without regard to age, ethnicity, religion or belief, gender identity, sex, sexual orientation, disability, pregnancy or maternity, marriage and civil partnership, or any other protected status. We’re continuously evolving our recruitment processes to ensure fairness and are open to accommodating any needs you might have.\nAI Disclosure: We use AI tools (Google Gemini) to help our team source and review applications for roles with a high volume of applications. These tools assist our recruiters in identifying great talent but do not replace human decision-making. At Depop, every hiring decision is made by a human.\nIf, due to a disability, you need adjustments to complete the application, please let us know by sending an email with your name, the role to which you would like to apply, and the type of support you need to complete the application to .\nJob Description\nDepop is looking for an experienced Backend Software Engineer to join us permanently in the Search and Retrieval team.\nWithin this role, you’ll be working in the cross-functional team in partnership with mobile, web and machine learning/data science teams to drive the team to success. You will be responsible for maintaining, scaling and improving the search system. As well as improving the underlying infrastructure that serves search and recommendations at Depop.\nResponsibilities:\nAs a Backend Engineer within this team, you can expect to:\nWork closely with Product Managers, Data Scientists, Front-End and other Backend Engineers to understand problems and to design solutions.\n\nProduce high-quality code that is well-structured and simple to understand that will be used by 1M+ active daily users\n\nEmbrace agile methodologies\n\nEngage in a culture of continuous improvement by attending events such as blameless post-mortems, architecture reviews etc.\n\nCollaborate on a daily basis with fellow engineers in the cross functional environment to solve problems and write code\n\nYou’ll own , code, workflows and data, through their entire lifecycle\n\nDocumenting any feature development\n\nQualifications:\nBe capable of writing high quality code in Scala, Java or Python\n\nExperience or interest in working with retrieval systems such as Opensearch/Elasticsearch or similar\n\nEagerness to work with ML colleagues on ML driven retrieval systems\n\nExperience with distributed datastores (e.g. DynamoDB, Redshift, AWS Athena)\n\nExperience with Message queues: (e.g. RabbitMQ / Apache Kafka)\n\nExperience building scalable applications serving 10,000s of requests per second\n\nExperience working with RDBMS, ideally Postgres\n\nDevOps culture (CI/CD pipeline)\n\nAbility to proactively find and solve complex problems independently, but also know when to seek guidance or help from your peers.\n\nMust haves:\nExperience with Scala or Java or Python\n\nProficient in testing solutions at different levels - unit, integration, etc\n\nExperience with relational or non-relational databases, preferably PostgreSQL, DynamoDB, AWS Athena\n\nNice to haves:\nExperience with search systems such as Elasticsearch/OpenSearch\n\nExperience with Vector based retrieval systems\n\nExperience working with ML scientists and ML pipelines\n\nExperience in eCommerce\n\nExperience with event-driven architectures, such as Kafka\n\nExperience in using production AWS infrastructure\n\nA genuine curiosity about AI and a willingness to explore how it can enhance your day-to-day work\n\nAdditional Information\nHealth + Mental Wellbeing\nPMI and cash plan healthcare access with Bupa\nSubsidised counselling and coaching with Self Space\nCycle to Work scheme with options from Evans or the Green Commute Initiative\nEmployee Assistance Programme (EAP) for 24/7 confidential support\nMental Health First Aiders across the business for support and signposting\n\nWork/Life Balance:\n25 days of annual leave with the option to carry over up to 5 days\nImpact hours: Up to 2 days of additional paid leave per year for volunteering\nFully paid 4-week sabbatical after completion of 5 years of consecutive service with Depop, to give you a chance to recharge or do something you love.\nFlexible Working: MyMode hybrid-working model with Flex, Office-Based, and Remote options *role-dependent\nAll offices are dog-friendly\nFamily Life:\nFor birth parent: 20 weeks of paid parental leave for full-time regular employees\nFor non-birth parents: 12 weeks of paid parental leave for full-time regular employees \nIVF leave, shared parental leave, and paid emergency parent/carer leave\nLearn + Grow:\nTwice-yearly development chats and yearly performance reviews\nLearning budget\nUpskilling our employees with company-wide training workshops, materials and resources\nYour Future:\nLife Insurance (financial compensation of 3x your salary)\nPension matching up to 6% of full base salary with Aviva\nDepop Extras:\nIn-office Depop Shop (that’s free!) and a packing station with free delivery.\nSpecial milestones are celebrated with gifts and rewards!","description_format":"text","description_chars":6403,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":null,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":null,"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":["Annual leave","Flexible schedule","Life insurance","Parental leave"],"hiring_locations":[{"name":"United Kingdom","iso":"GB","kind":"country"}],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Marketplaces","Secondhand"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-10-08T23:57:16Z"}],"visa":[{"country":"GB","licensed_sponsor":true,"evidence":"Licensed UK visa sponsor (Senior or Specialist Worker, Skilled Worker)","filings_12m":null,"filings_prev_12m":null,"green_card_filings_12m":null,"median_offered_wage_usd":null,"route":"Global Business Mobility: Senior or Specialist Worker; 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