Staff Software Engineer, Backend

About the Role

Uber's Customer Obsession (CO) org is hiring Staff Software Engineers to help define and scale one of the world's largest AI-powered customer engagement platforms . Our systems power millions of real-time interactions across web, mobile, chat, voice, and video for riders, eaters, merchants, couriers, and support agents worldwide.

As a Staff Engineer, you'll operate at the intersection of state-of-the-art AI and Uber's production-grade engineering infrastructure-shaping the technical strategy for conversational experiences that are personalized, empathetic, and human-like , while remaining aligned with Uber's business policies, compliance requirements, and reliability standards . This is a high-impact role with broad scope: you'll influence platform direction, accelerate multiple teams, and deliver durable systems that improve customer experiences at global scale.

What You'll Do

We're looking for a seasoned technical leader who combines deep engineering expertise with strong product intuition. You'll set direction and drive execution for platform-level capabilities that power customer-facing assistants-bringing together LLM prompting/agent design , Uber's assistant-building platforms, and highly reliable distributed systems.

In this role, you will:

• Set the technical vision and architecture for next-generation conversational assistants, influencing roadmaps across multiple teams and partner orgs
• Lead and de-risk large, multi-quarter initiatives , including migrations from legacy NLP systems to GenAI assistants and continued evolution of GenAI capabilities (quality, safety, latency, cost, evaluation)
• Own critical platform components (not just individual bots): frameworks, tooling, orchestration, observability, guardrails, and scalable backend services that enable consistent experiences across channels
• Drive cross-org alignment and execution , identifying ecosystem gaps, defining interfaces/standards, and building consensus to deliver production-ready implementations at scale
• Solve complex distributed systems and operational challenges under heavy traffic, raising the bar on reliability, performance, and operational excellence
• Establish mechanisms to measurably improve outcomes-reducing time-to-resolution, improving containment/CSAT, and scaling automation responsibly

If you enjoy high autonomy and technical depth-and want to multiply impact by enabling many engineers and teams-this role offers meaningful, visible work at global scale.

Basic Qualifications

• BS degree or higher in Computer Science or a related field (or equivalent practical experience)
• 8+ years of industry experience as a Software Engineer building scalable, highly available platforms
• Expertise with large-scale distributed systems (e.g., Kafka) and cloud platforms ( AWS, GCP, Azure ) and proven track record leading the delivery of production-grade systems (deployment, monitoring, reliability, on-call readiness, incident learning)
• Proficiency in at least one: Golang, Scala, or Java and comfortable with scripting in JavaScript and/or Python
• Strong experience with microservices and gRPC/REST API design, including defining durable interfaces and platform standards
• Excellent cross-functional communication skills: crisp design docs, architecture reviews, stakeholder alignment, and technical decision-making

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience designing and operating GenAI/LLM-based systems in production, including evaluation, prompt/agent iteration loops, and safety/quality guardrails
• Prior experience building conversational platforms (assistant frameworks, orchestration, dialog/state management, tooling) rather than only individual chatbot implementations
• Familiarity with dialog management ecosystems (e.g., Google Dialogflow, Amazon Alexa ) and patterns for multi-turn conversation handling
• Familiarity with multi-channel customer communication surfaces (e.g., WhatsApp, SMS, Slack ) and building consistent experience s across channels
  

For Sunnyvale, CA-based roles: The base salary range for this role is USD$232,000 per year - USD$258,000 per year. You will be eligible to participate in Uber's bonus program, and may be offered an equity award & other types of comp. All full-time employees are eligible to participate in a 401(k) plan. You will also be eligible for various benefits. More details can be found at the following link https://jobs.uber.com/en/benefits.