Staff, Back-end Engineer (Gateway Services)

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Company Introduction

We exist to wow our customers. We know we’re doing the right thing when we hear our customers say, “How did I ever live without Coupang?” Born out of an obsession to make shopping, eating, and living easier than ever, we are collectively disrupting the multi-billion-dollar commerce industry from the ground up and establishing an unparalleled reputation for being leading and reliable force in South Korean commerce.

We are proud to have the best of both worlds — a startup culture with the resources of a large global public company. This fuels us to continue our growth and launch new services at the speed we have been since our inception. We are all entrepreneurs surrounded by opportunities to drive new initiatives and innovations. At our core, we are bold and ambitious people that like to get our hands dirty and make a hands-on impact. At Coupang, you will see yourself, your colleagues, your team, and the company grow every day.

Our mission to build the future of commerce is real. We push the boundaries of what’s possible to solve problems and break traditional tradeoffs. Join Coupang now to create an epic experience in this always-on, high-tech, and hyper-connected world.

Role Overview

The Gateway Services team is responsible for building Coupang’s traffic infrastructure layer leveraging Service Mesh architecture to enable reliable, scalable, and efficient inter-service communication across the company. This includes critical capabilities such as service discovery, load balancing, traffic resiliency, traffic management, failure recovery, and observability. As a Senior Staff Software Engineer, you will play a critical role in designing and evolving the Service Mesh platform that powers Coupang’s services at scale. You will lead the development of fine-grained, enterprise-wide traffic control systems using state-of-the-art technologies such as Istio, Envoy, Kubernetes, ArgoCD, and SPIFFE. In this role, you will not only drive architectural decisions and deliver highly scalable infrastructure but also act as a thought leader and evangelist, promoting best practices in traffic management across the organization. You will collaborate with cross-functional platform teams to solve complex infrastructure challenges and establish a modern, extensible platform that supports Coupang’s rapid growth.

What You Will Do

Design and implement Service Mesh architecture and fine-grained traffic control systems in large-scale microservices environments

Develop and enhance core infrastructure components related to traffic management, including service discovery, load balancing, and resiliency mechanisms

Build and operate Service Mesh components using technologies such as Istio and Envoy within Kubernetes environments

Architect and develop workload and service management infrastructure for large-scale distributed systems

Design and implement high-performance infrastructure components using Go, Rust, or C++

Simplify complex infrastructure problems into scalable and executable solutions aligned with Coupang’s leadership principles (Move with Urgency, Ruthless Prioritization)

Drive platform scalability, reliability, and operational excellence, setting high standards for system design and architecture

Perform deep root cause analysis of critical system issues and proactively prevent recurrence

Collaborate with platform teams and technical leaders to improve system scalability and unlock new innovation opportunities

Act as a technical leader and evangelist, promoting Service Mesh and traffic management best practices across the organization

Basic Qualifications

Bachelor’s degree or higher in Computer Science or a related technical field

8+ years of software development experience with at least 2+ years in a Technical Lead role

Experience in designing and implementing traffic management solutions for large-scale systems

Hands-on experience in designing and building large-scale distributed systems within the past 3 years

Strong experience in designing and implementing traffic management solutions at scale

Proven expertise in Service Mesh technologies (e.g., Istio, Envoy)

Strong programming skills in Go, Rust, or C++, with a track record of delivering mission-critical systems

Experience with cloud platforms such as AWS, Azure, or GCP

Strong problem-solving skills with the ability to independently drive complex technical initiatives

Excellent communication and collaboration skills across cross-functional teams

Preferred Qualifications

Deep understanding of networking fundamentals including VPCs, subnets, routing, gateways, and service networking

Strong knowledge of modern microservices architecture and API design patterns at scale

Experience building high-performance, large-scale distributed systems

Experience with Kubernetes ecosystem tools (e.g., ArgoCD, SPIFFE)

Ability to manage competing priorities in a fast-paced environment and lead large-scale project delivery

Experience providing technical leadership in platform or infrastructure engineering teams

Demonstrated ability to influence organization-wide technical decisions and drive engineering excellence

Recruitment Process and Others

Recruitment Process

Application Review - 1st Interview - 2nd Interview - Offer

The exact nature of the recruitment process may vary according to the specific job and may be changed due to scheduling or other circumstances.

Interview schedules and the results will be informed to the applicant via the e-mail address submitted at the application stage.

Details to Consider

This job posting may be closed prior to the stated end date for application if all openings are filled.

Coupang has the right to rescind an offer of employment if a candidate is found to have submitted false information as part of the application process.

Those eligible for employment protection (recipients of veteran’s benefits, the disabled, etc.) may receive preferential treatment for employment in accordance with applicable laws.

Job titles and responsibilities may be subject to change depending on the candidate’s overall experience, etc. This will be communicated to the candidate at the appropriate time before the offer.

Hiring may be restricted in case the legal qualifications required for hiring and work performance is not met.

This is a full-time regular position and includes 12 weeks of probation period; provided, however, the probationary period may be either skipped, shortened or extended if necessary for business purposes

Privacy Notice

Your personal information will be collected and managed by Coupang as stated in the Application Privacy Notice located below.

https://privacy.coupang.com/en/land/jobs/

Document Return Policy

This notification is given pursuant to Article 11 (6) of the Fair Hiring Procedure Act.

A job applicant, who has applied but not been finally selected for a position at Coupang (the “Company”), may request the Company to return his/her hiring documents submitted pursuant to the Fair Hiring Procedure Act. However, this will not apply where the hiring documents were submitted via the website of the Company or e-mail, or where the job applicant submitted those documents voluntarily without a request from the Company. In addition, if the hiring documents were destroyed due to a natural disaster or any other reasons not attributable to the Company, such documents will be deemed to have been returned to the job applicant.

A job applicant who wishes to request the return of his/her hiring documents pursuant to the main sentence of paragraph 2 above should fill out a “Request for Return of Hiring Documents” [Annex Form No. 3 in the Enforcement Rule of the Fair Hiring Procedure Act] and submit It by email ( [email protected] ) . In such case, within fourteen (14) days from the date of identifying the receipt of the req