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Principal Software Engineer (Backend) - Job Opportunity at eBay

Toronto, Canada
Full-time
Executive
Posted: June 5, 2025
On-site
CAD 200,000 - 280,000 annually, representing top-tier compensation for Principal Engineering roles in Toronto's competitive tech market. This estimate reflects eBay's position as a major tech employer, the seniority of the role requiring 15+ years of experience, and Toronto's status as a growing technology hub with increasing demand for senior backend engineering talent.

Benefits

Opportunity to work on a global platform serving millions of users across 190+ markets, providing extensive exposure to international markets and diverse customer bases
Access to cutting-edge technology stack and high-scale distributed systems that handle billions in revenue and hundreds of millions of daily page views
Leadership development through mentoring opportunities and cross-functional collaboration with world-class engineering teams
Innovation-focused environment with data-driven decision making and continuous experimentation capabilities
Inclusive workplace culture that values authenticity, bold ideas, and diverse perspectives from all team members

Key Responsibilities

Drive architectural vision and strategic technical direction for backend systems that generate billions in revenue across eBay's global e-commerce platform
Lead cross-domain technical initiatives to ensure architecture alignment, performance optimization, and high availability across multiple product categories
Elevate engineering culture and technical excellence by fostering innovation, efficiency, and quality standards across distributed teams
Provide hands-on technical leadership through code development, review processes, and prototype creation for complex system solutions
Modernize technology stack and advocate for continuous improvement initiatives that impact organizational-wide engineering practices
Mentor and develop engineering talent at all levels while building high-performing teams across multiple geographies
Collaborate with senior stakeholders including product managers, designers, and business partners to deliver world-class customer experiences

Requirements

Education

Master's degree in Computer Science, or Bachelor's degree with equivalent experience

Experience

15+ years of experience in software engineering, with a focus on large-scale, distributed backend systems

Required Skills

Proven experience designing and architecting complex systems at massive scale, ideally within e-commerce or other high-traffic environments Expertise in distributed systems, microservices, event-driven architectures Deep understanding of high-performance databases (SQL, NoSQL), caching strategies, and data replication techniques Solid understanding of scalability and performance tuning, for high-volume, critical applications Experience working with Java, Kotlin, and deep familiarity with system-level design principles Track record of leading multi-functional projects, aligning teams around complex technical initiatives that impact the entire company Demonstrated ability to mentor engineers at all levels, provide strategic technical leadership, and influence organizational direction Exceptional problem-solving skills, with a focus on innovation, scalability, and performance optimization Strong communication and leadership skills, with the ability to collaborate with both technical and non-technical partners at all levels of the organization Experience with Agile/Scrum methodologies
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Sauge AI Market Intelligence

Industry Trends

The e-commerce industry is experiencing unprecedented growth with global online retail sales projected to reach $8.1 trillion by 2026, driving massive demand for scalable backend architecture expertise. Companies are increasingly investing in microservices architectures and distributed systems to handle growing transaction volumes and international expansion. There's a significant shift toward real-time, event-driven architectures in e-commerce platforms as businesses compete on millisecond-level performance for auction systems, inventory management, and personalized user experiences. This trend is particularly critical for marketplace platforms handling complex buyer-seller interactions. The collectibles and fashion e-commerce segments are experiencing explosive growth, with trading cards and luxury fashion driving billions in online transactions. This specialized market requires sophisticated backend systems capable of handling unique authentication, bidding, and transaction workflows that differ significantly from traditional retail e-commerce.

Role Significance

Typically leads technical initiatives across 3-5 engineering teams totaling 25-40 engineers, while collaborating with an extended network of 100+ engineers across multiple domains. The role involves coordinating with product managers, designers, and business stakeholders across different time zones and geographic regions.
This is a top-tier individual contributor role with significant architectural influence across eBay's global platform. The position operates at the same level as senior engineering managers but focuses on technical leadership rather than people management. The role has direct impact on billion-dollar revenue streams and influences technical decisions affecting millions of users worldwide.

Key Projects

Complete modernization of core transaction processing systems handling millions of daily auction and fixed-price transactions across global markets Architecture design and implementation of next-generation microservices platform supporting eBay's focus categories including collectibles authentication and fashion marketplace features Cross-domain performance optimization initiatives targeting sub-100ms response times for critical user journey components like item viewing and bidding processes

Success Factors

Exceptional systems thinking capability to understand and optimize complex interdependencies between auction systems, payment processing, inventory management, and user experience components across eBay's global marketplace platform Strong influence and communication skills to drive technical consensus across geographically distributed teams while balancing competing priorities from multiple product domains and business stakeholders Deep expertise in high-scale distributed systems design patterns, particularly those relevant to real-time bidding, financial transactions, and global data consistency challenges inherent in marketplace platforms Proven ability to balance innovation with system stability, making architectural decisions that enable rapid feature development while maintaining 99.9%+ uptime for revenue-critical systems

Market Demand

Extremely high demand with limited supply of qualified candidates. Principal-level backend engineers with e-commerce and distributed systems expertise represent less than 2% of the engineering talent pool, while demand from major tech companies expanding their Canadian operations continues to grow rapidly.

Important Skills

Critical Skills

Distributed systems architecture expertise is absolutely essential as eBay's platform requires handling millions of concurrent users across multiple time zones with strict consistency requirements for financial transactions and auction bidding. Any system downtime directly impacts millions of dollars in transaction volume. Java and Kotlin proficiency represents core technical requirements as eBay's backend systems are primarily built on JVM-based technologies. Deep understanding of JVM performance tuning, garbage collection optimization, and concurrent programming patterns is essential for the high-throughput requirements. Database and caching strategy expertise is critical for managing petabyte-scale data across user profiles, item catalogs, transaction histories, and real-time bidding information. Knowledge of both SQL and NoSQL systems is essential for handling diverse data access patterns and global data replication requirements.

Beneficial Skills

Machine learning and AI expertise for recommendation systems, fraud detection, and personalization features that drive user engagement and revenue growth in competitive marketplace environments Cloud-native architecture experience with containerization and orchestration technologies for modern deployment strategies and infrastructure cost optimization Security and compliance expertise particularly relevant to financial transaction processing, international data privacy regulations, and marketplace trust and safety requirements

Unique Aspects

Direct involvement in architecting systems that handle unique e-commerce challenges like real-time auction bidding, collectibles authentication workflows, and complex seller-buyer interaction patterns not found in traditional retail e-commerce platforms
Opportunity to work on specialized marketplace features for high-value collectibles including trading cards, comics, and luxury items that require sophisticated fraud detection, authentication integration, and specialized payment processing capabilities
Exposure to global-scale technical challenges including multi-currency transactions, international shipping integration, and regulatory compliance across 190+ international markets with varying legal and technical requirements
Leadership role in modernizing legacy auction and marketplace systems that have been operating at massive scale for over two decades, requiring careful migration strategies and backward compatibility considerations

Career Growth

Typical progression to next-level roles occurs within 3-5 years for high-performing Principal Engineers, with opportunities for Distinguished Engineer advancement within eBay or lateral moves to senior leadership positions at other major technology companies.

Potential Next Roles

Distinguished Engineer or Senior Principal Engineer roles with broader platform responsibility across eBay's entire technology ecosystem Engineering Director positions leading large distributed teams focused on core platform services or major product areas Chief Technology Officer or VP of Engineering roles at mid-size e-commerce companies or marketplace startups Technical co-founder positions at venture-backed startups leveraging deep marketplace and auction system expertise

Company Overview

eBay

eBay remains one of the world's largest online marketplace platforms with over 190 million active buyers and 19 million sellers across global markets. The company processes billions of dollars in gross merchandise volume annually and continues to innovate in specialized categories like collectibles, luxury fashion, and automotive parts where authentication and specialized marketplace features provide competitive advantages.

eBay maintains a strong position as the dominant C2C marketplace globally, competing directly with Amazon's marketplace, Facebook Marketplace, and emerging platforms like Depop and Vinted in specific categories. The company's focus on collectibles and unique items differentiates it from traditional retail-focused e-commerce platforms.
The Toronto office represents eBay's significant investment in Canadian talent and serves as a key development center for core platform services. Canada's strong technology talent pool and favorable business environment make Toronto an increasingly important hub for eBay's engineering operations, particularly for backend infrastructure and platform services.
eBay emphasizes a data-driven, experimentation-focused engineering culture with strong emphasis on customer impact measurement and rapid iteration. The company promotes collaborative decision-making across distributed teams and maintains a culture of technical excellence with significant investment in engineering development and career growth.
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