Senior Software Engineer, Backend — Seoul Studios (Tinder Seoul)

About the Team

Seoul Studios is Tinder's Seoul-based product studio, chartered to build breakthrough innovations in how people meet and connect. We move fast - incubating new, interactive dating experiences, running rapid experiments, and shipping features that raise engagement and improve reconsideration for members around the world.

Based in Seoul, the pod is a self-contained, cross-functional team of iOS, Android, web, and backend engineers working shoulder to shoulder with Product, Design, and Data, and partnering with teams across Seoul and our U.S. headquarters to take ideas from early experiment to global scale.

About the Role

As a Senior Backend Engineer on Seoul Studios, you'll design and build the scalable, low-latency backend systems that power new, interactive, and often real-time dating experiences. You'll own the architecture of complex services end to end, make sound tradeoffs across performance, reliability, and scalability, and help set the technical bar for a fast-moving pod. You'll partner closely with Product, Design, Data, and client engineers to ship high-quality features on a rapid cadence, and mentor fellow engineers as a senior member of the team.

Where you'll work

This is a hybrid role and requires in-office collaboration three times per week. Our office is located in Seoul.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and operate scalable, low-latency backend services that power new, interactive, and real-time dating experiences.

• Lead the technical design and architecture of complex backend systems and their integrations with core Tinder platforms, making sound tradeoffs across performance, reliability, and long-term scalability.

• Build for a fast, experiment-driven cadence - enabling rapid iteration, A/B testing, and quick launches without compromising reliability.

• Ensure service performance, reliability, and stability for live and real-time experiences under real-world traffic.

• Partner with Product, Design, Data, and client (iOS/Android/web) engineers to deliver features end to end.

• Drive engineering excellence - architecture, design, and code reviews, testing, and best practices - and help raise the technical bar across the pod.

• Mentor fellow engineers and contribute to the pod's technical direction and decision-making.

• Own features end to end, from design and implementation through deployment and operation.

Requirements

• 5+ years of professional backend software development experience.

• Proven experience designing and building low-latency, distributed backend systems at scale.

• Proficiency with Java and/or Kotlin (Spring / WebFlux), or strong equivalent backend engineering experience.

• Experience with relational and NoSQL databases (e.g., RDB, Redis, DynamoDB) and streaming/messaging systems such as Kafka.

• Experience operating applications on Kubernetes and cloud infrastructure (AWS, GCP, or Azure).

• Solid understanding of backend architecture and the judgment to know when and how to make tradeoffs; an advocate for code quality and sound engineering practices.

• Ability to work autonomously and drive projects proactively, and to lead and mentor within a team.

• Excellent communication skills and the ability to collaborate across functions, cultures, and global time zones.

• Able to travel internationally without restriction.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with real-time and low-latency systems (WebSocket, WebRTC, presence, live events, or media streaming).

• Experience with high-scale data pipelines and streaming technologies (Kafka, Flink, Spark, ElasticSearch).

• Experience building APIs that power mobile (iOS/Android) and web applications.

• Experience with experimentation platforms and iterative A/B testing at scale.

• Experience taking a product from 0→1 and operating in a fast-moving, startup-like pod within a larger organization.

• Comfortable working with legacy code and implementing effective strategies for improvement.

• BS/MS in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field.

• Experience leveraging AI tools and the broader AI ecosystem to build and work more innovatively and productively.

• Professional working proficiency in English (Seoul-based, global cross-timezone role).