Freelance Remote Java Backend Developer Jobs in California

We are looking for inquisitive, well-rounded Backend engineers to join our Core, Monetization, and Tech Foundations engineering teams. Working closely with product managers, designers, data scientists, and backend engineers, you'll play an important role in enabling the newest technologies and experiences as we scale and evolve. You will build robust frameworks & features. You will accelerate velocity for one of the world's largest public cloud workloads. You will empower both developers and Pinners alike. You'll have the opportunity to find creative solutions to thought-provoking problems. Even better, because we covet the kind of courageous thinking that's required in order for big bets and smart risks to pay off, you'll be invited to create and drive new initiatives, seeing them from inception through to technical design, implementation, and release.

What you'll do:

• Build out the backend for Pinner-facing features to power the future of inspiration on Pinterest
• Partner with design, product, and backend teams to build end-to-end functionality
• Put on your Pinner hat to suggest new product ideas and features
• Employ automated testing to build features with a high degree of technical quality, taking responsibility for the components and features you develop
• Grow as an engineer by working with world-class peers on varied and high impact projects
• Design, develop, and operate large scale, distributed systems and networks
• Work with Engineering customers to understand new requirements and address them in a scalable and efficient manner
• Actively work to improve the developer process and experience in all phases from coding to operation
• May contribute to and lead each step of the product development process, from ideation to implementation to release; from rapidly prototyping, running A/B tests, to architecting and building solutions that can scale to support millions of users
• Leverage AI to seek faster execution (i.e. draft, prototype, outline) and explore alternative options (i.e. iterate, compare approaches)
• Leverage AI to synthesize information (summarize, distill themes) and automate repeatable tasks (documentation, reporting, QA checks)

What we're looking for:

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, a related field or equivalent experience.
• 4+ years of industry backend development experience, building consumer or business facing products
• Proficiency in common backend tech stacks for online service, storage, caching and data processing
• Proficiency in building GraphQL APIs and converting REST to GraphQL
• Passionate about working on a Platform team; experience owning large projects 
• Self-motivated and a desire to improve the lives of other developers / internal developer productivity 
• Experience in following best practices in writing reliable and maintainable code that may be used by many other engineers
• Ability to keep up-to-date with new technologies to understand what should be incorporated
• Strong collaboration and communication skills
• Experience building & operating large scale distributed systems and/or networks. Bonus points if you enjoy deploying and operating large scale workloads on a public cloud footprint
• Experience in Python, Java, C++, or Go or another language and a willingness to learn
• Demonstrated ability to use AI to improve speed and quality in your day-to-day workflow for relevant outputs.
• Strong track record of critical evaluation and verification of AI-assisted work (e.g., testing, source-checking, data validation, peer review).
• High integrity and ownership: you protect sensitive data, avoid over-reliance on AI, and remain accountable for final decisions and deliverables.

Relocation Statement:

• This position is not eligible for relocation assistance. Visit our PinFlex page to learn more about our working model.

In-Office Requirement Statement: Insert to clarify in-office requirement for the role.

We recognize that the ideal environment for work is situational and may differ across departments. What this looks like day-to-day can vary based on the needs of each organization or role.

Some teams will need you to be in the office for in-person collaboration 1-2 times/quarter and therefore can be situated anywhere in the country.  While other teams will need you to be in the office for in-person collaboration 1 times per week and therefore needs to be in a commutable distance from one of the following offices, [SF, Palo Alto, Seattle].

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