Software Development Lead — Marketplace

Build the Product Millions Will Fall in Love With

Location:

Seattle, WA (on-site) Type: Full-Time

Compensation:

Competitive Salary + Meaningful Equity + Performance Bonuses ABOUT BUYWANDER BuyWander is rebuilding the $850B retail returns industry — and turning it into something people actually love. We take chaotic truckloads of returned goods and transform them into a fast, fun, treasure-hunt shopping experience powered by AI, real-time auctions, and in-store pickup. We're not just building a marketplace. We're building a daily habit .

And the marketplace — the auctions, the app, the search, the moment a customer discovers something they didn't know they wanted — is where that habit is won or lost. That's what you'd own.

THE ROLE

We're hiring a Software Development Lead — the most senior hands-on engineer on our customer-facing product. This is an IC+ role. You'll write code, set technical direction, and own the systems that power the buyer experience end to end: auctions, website/app, notifications, search, and personalization. You'll be the person who makes the marketplace fast, reliable, and addictive — and who raises the technical bar for everyone building alongside you.

You won't inherit a finished product. You'll shape it. We have a foundation and momentum; we need a builder who can take the marketplace to the next level. We're looking for someone who is: A hands-on builder first — you ship, and your code sets the standard Product-minded — you care why a feature exists, not just how to build it Obsessed with the customer experience — speed, polish, and delight matter to you AI-forward — you use modern tools to move faster and build smarter WHAT YOU'LL OWN Real-Time Auctions Own the auction engine that powers live bidding — real-time, accurate, and rock-solid under load Handle the hard problems: concurrency, bid integrity, race conditions, and the spikes that come with a live marketplace Partner with Data on auction design, demand signals, and pricing Website & App Lead development of the buyer-facing web and mobile experience (Vue/Nuxt front end, Python/C# services) Make it fast, intuitive, and fun — the treasure hunt should feel like a treasure hunt Own performance, reliability, and the release process for the product customers touch every day Search & Discovery Build search that helps people find — and stumble onto — items they'll love, across a constantly changing, one-of-a-kind inventory Tune relevance, ranking, and browse for a catalog where no two items are alike Personalization Turn browse ? bid ? win ? pickup behavior into a personalized experience Partner with Data to surface the right items to the right customer at the right moment Notifications & Engagement Own the notification systems (push, email, in-app) that bring customers back — outbid alerts, auction endings, new drops Build engagement loops that drive the daily habit without becoming noise Technical Leadership (hands-on) Set the technical direction, architecture, and quality bar for marketplace engineering Mentor other engineers through code review, design, and example Make pragmatic build-vs-buy-vs-integrate calls and own the outcomes Partner closely with Product, Data, and Warehouse/Ops engineering to keep the full experience aligned