Senior Server Engineer II, Subscriptions

About the role

You will design, build, and maintain scalable backend services that power Strava's subscription and payments platform using a diverse tech stack including Ruby, Java, Scala, Python, Go, MySQL, Redis, Cassandra, Kafka, Kubernetes, and Docker. You will develop and optimize APIs that integrate with client-facing applications to deliver seamless subscription and payment experiences for athletes around the world. You will collaborate closely with cross-functional partners, including product managers, designers, and client-side engineers, to align technical implementation with business objectives and user needs. You will help define the technical future of payments and subscriptions at Strava, partnering with your Engineering Manager to shape and execute that vision through thoughtful architecture and delivery. You will mentor and support other engineers, fostering a culture of learning, growth, and technical excellence across the team. You will ensure service reliability, scalability, and performance while balancing technical debt with new feature development in a fast-paced environment. You will own end-to-end responsibility for critical subscription infrastructure components, driving improvements that directly impact revenue and customer experience.

Key facts

What you'll do

• Design, build, and maintain scalable backend services powering Strava's subscription and payments platform using our tech stack (Ruby, Java, Scala, Python, Go, MySQL, Redis, Cassandra, Kafka, Kubernetes, and Docker).
• Develop and optimize APIs that integrate with client-facing applications to deliver seamless subscription and payment experiences for athletes.
• Collaborate with cross-functional partners, including product managers, designers, and client-side engineers, to align technical implementation with business needs.
• Help define the technical future of payments and subscriptions at Strava, partnering with your Engineering Manager to shape and execute that vision.
• Mentor and support other engineers, fostering a culture of learning, growth, and technical excellence.
• Ensure service reliability, scalability, and performance while balancing technical debt with new feature development.
• Own the design and evolution of core billing and subscription data models to ensure accuracy and consistency across systems.
• Drive observability, monitoring, and alerting strategies for payment and subscription services to enable rapid troubleshooting and insights.
• Partner with the finance team to ensure correct subscription lifecycle management, invoicing, and compliance with financial controls.
• Work with the marketing team to support acquisition and retention efforts through technically enabled campaigns and experiments.
• Implement robust testing strategies and safeguard mechanisms to protect payment integrity and customer data.
• Optimize database queries, caching layers, and infrastructure components to handle high-scale athlete interactions globally.
• Participate in on-call rotations to support production services and respond to critical incidents promptly.
• Contribute to technical documentation and best practices to enable efficient knowledge sharing across the organization.

Requirements

• You have 7+ years of professional software development experience or equivalent expertise in backend engineering.
• You are proficient in at least one of Strava's core backend languages (Ruby, Java, Scala, Python, or Go).
• You have experience with relational (e.g., MySQL) and NoSQL (e.g., Redis, Cassandra) databases in production environments.
• You have a solid understanding of distributed systems and technologies like Kafka, Kubernetes, and Docker.
• You have experience working with - or are excited to learn about - subscription billing, payment processing, and related infrastructure.
• You excel at mentoring engineers and fostering a positive, growth-oriented team culture.
• You are comfortable working in a fast-paced environment where priorities can shift quickly based on business needs.
• You communicate clearly and effectively, both in writing and verbally, to align technical and non-technical stakeholders.

Practical notes

• Work arrangement: Full-time.
• Location requirement: Flexible hybrid model that translates to more than half of your time on-site in our San Francisco office - three days per week.

Why join us?

Movement brings us together. At Strava, we're building the world's largest community of active people, helping them stay motivated and achieve their goals. Our global team is passionate about making movement fun, meaningful, and accessible to everyone. Whether you're shaping the technology, growing our community, or driving innovation, your work at Strava makes an impact. When you join Strava, you're not just joining a company - you're joining a movement. If you're ready to bring your energy, ideas, and drive, let's build something incredible together.

Strava builds software that makes the best part of our athletes' days even better. Just as we're deeply committed to unlocking their potential, we're dedicated to providing a world-class, inclusive workplace where our employees can grow and thrive, too. We're backed by Sequoia Capital, TCV, Madrone Partners and Jackson Square Ventures, and we're expanding in order to exceed the needs of our growing community of global athletes. Our culture reflects our community. We are continuously striving to hire and engage teammates from all backgrounds, experiences and perspectives because we know we are a stronger team together.

Strava is an equal opportunity employer. In keeping with the values of Strava, we make all employment decisions including hiring, evaluation, termination, promotional and training opportunities, without regard to race, religion, color, sex, age, national origin, ancestry, sexual orientation, physical handicap, mental disability, medical condition, disability, gender or identity or expression, pregnancy or pregnancy-related condition, marital status, height and/or weight.

We will ensure that individuals with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodation to participate in the job application or interview process, to perform essential job functions, and to receive other benefits and privileges of employment. Please contact us to request accommodation.

California Consumer Protection Act Applicant Notice https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vSc8y6On4NlP5s12hf4kmWe_p