Experience: 10+ years in Software Engineering | 5+ years in Data Engineering
Education: Bachelor’s Degree or higher in Computer Science, Information Technology, or a related technical field
About SideChef
SideChef is a leading, large-scale consumer and partner-facing food technology platform. We seamlessly blend recipe content, meal planning, grocery commerce, and white-labeled digital experiences. Powering this ecosystem is a sophisticated, cross-channel analytics platform that connects the dots between food content, consumer engagement, and shoppable commerce outcomes for some of the world’s largest brands.
Role Overview
We are seeking a versatile and highly experienced Senior Software Engineer to span both software development and data engineering. In this role, you will support the core SideChef Recipe Hub platform and our Shoppability products, ensuring seamless functionality across web, mobile app, partner platforms, and retailer/affiliate ecosystems. Additionally, you will support the data pipelines, ETL workflows, and reporting models that connect product usage, marketing activity, and commerce outcomes. This position is fully remote but requires close collaboration and overlapping working hours with our team members mainly in China.
This is a high-autonomy role designed for a disciplined, senior problem solver. Operating within a small, lean remote team, you will be expected to work independently with minimal daily management, independently untangle and master complex legacy code, and consistently deliver high-quality work with low-friction, high-efficiency interaction.
Key ResponsibilitiesCore Platform & Software Engineering
- Maintain, scale, and optimize SideChef’s core backend powered by Django, MySQL, and Redis.
- Support and modernize our front-end architectures, working with both legacy React codebases and newer Next.js implementations.
- Manage, deploy, and optimize a robust AWS infrastructure to ensure high availability and performance across all services.
Data Engineering & Business Intelligence
- Maintain and improve scalable ETL workflows, data models, and analytics tables that power campaign reporting, business KPI dashboards, and sponsored-content measurement.
- Architect and maintain data pipelines that aggregate event-level data across web, app, and affiliate ecosystems.
- Work closely with the BI modeling layer (Holistics) using LookML-style logic (explores, joins, measures, derived tables) to deliver dashboards that combine reusable shared logic with partner-specific customizations.
- Design data pipelines and analytics tables with strong idempotency principles to prevent duplicate data processing and ensure 100% financial/attribution accuracy in commercial reporting.
- Ensure all data collection, event-tracking pipelines, and client-facing dashboards strictly adhere to modern data privacy standards (e.g., GDPR, CCPA) and secure multi-tenant data isolation.
AI-Assisted Development & Innovation
- Actively utilize AI code-generation tools for rapid development while thoroughly reviewing and vetting all AI-generated code.
- Ensure all AI-assisted code meets strict human-level standards for security, maintainability, and performance.
- Strategically understand, monitor, and limit LLM token usage to ensure cost-efficient code development and architecture.
Technical Stack & RequirementsRequired Engineering Expertise:
- Backend & Database: Strong proficiency in Django (Python), MySQL, and Redis.
- Frontend: Competency in React and Next.js. Recipe Management System is built on React 18/TypeScript frontend using Vite, React Router, TanStack Query, Zustand, Radix UI, and related admin/productivity libraries
- AWS Cloud Ecosystem: Hands-on experience managing and deploying:
- Compute/Containers: ECS, ECR, Lambda, Batch
- Storage/Data/Streaming: RDS (MySQL), ElastiCache/Redis, S3, Athena, Kinesis
- Content/Delivery/Messaging: CloudFront, SES, Pinpoint
Required Data & BI Expertise:
- Experience building and maintaining complex ETL pipelines and data models.
- Deep understanding of event-level data processing.
- Proficiency with BI tools like Looker (LookML) or Holistics, including creating complex explores, joins, custom measures, and derived tables.
Qualifications & Soft Skills
- Experience: 10+ years of professional software engineering experience, with at least 5 years dedicated to data engineering or BI-heavy backend roles.
- High-Autonomy Problem Solver: Proven ability to operate independently with minimal management in a lean, remote engineering environment. You are a self-starter who can dive into complex legacy codebases, reverse-engineer undocumented logic, and autonomously deliver high-quality, production-ready solutions with minimal daily oversight.
- AI Native Mindset: High comfort level working alongside AI development tools, with the ability to support and maintain AI-generated logic long-term.
- Communication: Exceptional verbal and written English communication skills; able to translate complex data realities into clear business insights for cross-functional teams.
- Schedule Flexibility: Willingness and ability to regularly align working hours with our team in China.
Work Location: Remote
