API Engineer

DistroKid is a fully remote company that helps artists share their music with the world. As an API Engineer, you will be instrumental in building and scaling the API infrastructure that powers integrations and partnerships, ensuring high performance and reliability for millions of musicians.

Responsibilities:

• Own the design and implementation of high-scale backend systems and APIs that power DistroKid’s core platform
• Architect and evolve distributed systems on AWS to handle high throughput, reliability, and performance
• Work across backend, infrastructure, and DevOps boundaries from API design to deployment and system operations
• Design and integrate with enterprise-grade systems and external platforms to support complex, high-scale workflows
• Guide technical design decisions for complex systems (data models, service boundaries, scaling strategies, failure handling)
• Write production code and remain actively involved in building and improving systems
• Improve system observability, reliability, and performance at scale
• Partner closely with product and engineering teams to translate business needs into robust technical solutions

Requirements:

• 10+ years of experience building and scaling backend systems in production environments
• Solid, recent hands-on coding experience (this is not a pure design/management role)
• Deep experience with AWS (compute, storage, networking, scaling, etc.)
• Demonstrated experience designing and operating high-scale distributed systems
• Extensive experience with API design and system architecture in complex environments
• Experience working across infrastructure and application layers (DevOps, deployment, reliability, etc.)
• Experience with enterprise integration platforms (e.g., AWS API Gateway, Azure API Management, MuleSoft, Apigee, Kong, or similar) or building/operating large-scale integration layers
• Ability to own systems end-to-end from architecture to implementation to production operation
• Comfortable navigating ambiguity and making critical technical decisions
• Experience with high-throughput systems, event-driven architectures, or data pipelines
• Background in platform or infrastructure engineering
• Experience in high-growth or scaling product environments