Backend Software Engineer Jobs for OPT Students
Backend Software Engineer roles are among the most common OPT-sponsored positions in the U.S., with employers regularly filing H-1B and E-3 petitions for engineers in this field. Your 12-month OPT window, extendable to 36 months with a STEM extension, gives you a realistic runway to secure sponsorship.
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About the team: Global e-commerce is a content e-commerce business with international short video product as the carrier. It is committed to becoming the first choice for users to discover and purchase good products with affordable prices. Global e-commerce business team hopes to provide users with more tailored, and efficient consumption experience, enabling merchants to receive consistent and reliable platform services in different scenarios such as live e-commerce, short video content e-commerce, so as to make more affordable and high-quality products sell easily and a better life within reach. Content E-commerce is a global team responsible for building up the content ecosystem for E-commerce. We provide more highly qualified E-commerce content to customers to help them find good products at affordable prices. We attract more creators to land on the E-commerce platform, create more E-commerce related content and get benefits from their content. Also, we help merchants to find suitable creators to sell their products. Our mission is to build up an ecosystem which both customers and creators and merchants will benefit from.
Responsibilities:
- Develop efficient, highly scalable and secured services to build/integrate E-Commerce solutions for TikTok Shop in the US.
- Integrate TikTok Shop with partner APIs to leverage existing ecosystem and scale up the business to a broader audience, while guaranteeing end-to-end scalability and providing a cohesive experience to customers.
- Design, develop and test the global product for the creator affiliate and agency product.
- In charge of optimizing the experience of influencers and affiliate, you are responsible for the affiliate GMV and activities of influencers.
- Constantly work with Affiliate product team to optimize creator funnel and creator experiences.
- Complete ownership of product feature development, from initial requirement management to post-live analysis, drive the best product efficiency and experience.
Qualifications
Minimum Qualifications:
- Bachelors or higher degree in Computer Science or related technical discipline.
- 2 or more years of experience managing highly scalable backend services and systems using at least one of Java/Golang/Python/C++.
- Strong software programming capabilities, exhibits good code design and coding style.
- Deep understanding of data structure, algorithm design and analysis, networking, data security and highly scalable systems design.
Preferred Qualification:
- In depth knowledge of common databases and messaging frameworks like MySQL/Redis/Kafka etc.
About us
Founded in 2012, ByteDance's mission is to inspire creativity and enrich life. With a suite of more than a dozen products, including TikTok, Lemon8, CapCut and Pico as well as platforms specific to the China market, including Toutiao, Douyin, and Xigua, ByteDance has made it easier and more fun for people to connect with, consume, and create content.
Why Join ByteDance
Inspiring creativity is at the core of ByteDance's mission. Our innovative products are built to help people authentically express themselves, discover and connect – and our global, diverse teams make that possible. Together, we create value for our communities, inspire creativity and enrich life – a mission we work towards every day. As ByteDancers, we strive to do great things with great people. We lead with curiosity, humility, and a desire to make impact in a rapidly growing tech company. By constantly iterating and fostering an "Always Day 1" mindset, we achieve meaningful breakthroughs for ourselves, our Company, and our users. When we create and grow together, the possibilities are limitless. Join us.
Diversity & Inclusion
ByteDance is committed to creating an inclusive space where employees are valued for their skills, experiences, and unique perspectives. Our platform connects people from across the globe and so does our workplace. At ByteDance, our mission is to inspire creativity and enrich life. To achieve that goal, we are committed to celebrating our diverse voices and to creating an environment that reflects the many communities we reach. We are passionate about this and hope you are too.
Reasonable Accommodation
ByteDance is committed to providing reasonable accommodations in our recruitment processes for candidates with disabilities, pregnancy, sincerely held religious beliefs or other reasons protected by applicable laws. If you need assistance or a reasonable accommodation, please reach out to us at https://tinyurl.com/RA-request
Job Information
【For Pay Transparency】Compensation Description (Annually) The base salary range for this position in the selected city is $122574 - $259200 annually. Compensation may vary outside of this range depending on a number of factors, including a candidate’s qualifications, skills, competencies and experience, and location. Base pay is one part of the Total Package that is provided to compensate and recognize employees for their work, and this role may be eligible for additional discretionary bonuses/incentives, and restricted stock units. Benefits may vary depending on the nature of employment and the country work location. Employees have day one access to medical, dental, and vision insurance, a 401(k) savings plan with company match, paid parental leave, short-term and long-term disability coverage, life insurance, wellbeing benefits, among others. Employees also receive 10 paid holidays per year, 10 paid sick days per year and 17 days of Paid Personal Time (prorated upon hire with increasing accruals by tenure).
The Company reserves the right to modify or change these benefits programs at any time, with or without notice.
For Los Angeles County (unincorporated) Candidates: Qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records will be considered for employment in accordance with all federal, state, and local laws including the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance for Employers and the California Fair Chance Act. Our company believes that criminal history may have a direct, adverse and negative relationship on the following job duties, potentially resulting in the withdrawal of the conditional offer of employment:
1. Interacting and occasionally having unsupervised contact with internal/external clients and/or colleagues;
2. Appropriately handling and managing confidential information including proprietary and trade secret information and access to information technology systems; and
3. Exercising sound judgment.
Responsibilities
About the team: Global e-commerce is a content e-commerce business with international short video product as the carrier. It is committed to becoming the first choice for users to discover and purchase good products with affordable prices. Global e-commerce business team hopes to provide users with more tailored, and efficient consumption experience, enabling merchants to receive consistent and reliable platform services in different scenarios such as live e-commerce, short video content e-commerce, so as to make more affordable and high-quality products sell easily and a better life within reach. Content E-commerce is a global team responsible for building up the content ecosystem for E-commerce. We provide more highly qualified E-commerce content to customers to help them find good products at affordable prices. We attract more creators to land on the E-commerce platform, create more E-commerce related content and get benefits from their content. Also, we help merchants to find suitable creators to sell their products. Our mission is to build up an ecosystem which both customers and creators and merchants will benefit from.
Responsibilities:
- Develop efficient, highly scalable and secured services to build/integrate E-Commerce solutions for TikTok Shop in the US.
- Integrate TikTok Shop with partner APIs to leverage existing ecosystem and scale up the business to a broader audience, while guaranteeing end-to-end scalability and providing a cohesive experience to customers.
- Design, develop and test the global product for the creator affiliate and agency product.
- In charge of optimizing the experience of influencers and affiliate, you are responsible for the affiliate GMV and activities of influencers.
- Constantly work with Affiliate product team to optimize creator funnel and creator experiences.
- Complete ownership of product feature development, from initial requirement management to post-live analysis, drive the best product efficiency and experience.
Qualifications
Minimum Qualifications:
- Bachelors or higher degree in Computer Science or related technical discipline.
- 2 or more years of experience managing highly scalable backend services and systems using at least one of Java/Golang/Python/C++.
- Strong software programming capabilities, exhibits good code design and coding style.
- Deep understanding of data structure, algorithm design and analysis, networking, data security and highly scalable systems design.
Preferred Qualification:
- In depth knowledge of common databases and messaging frameworks like MySQL/Redis/Kafka etc.
About us
Founded in 2012, ByteDance's mission is to inspire creativity and enrich life. With a suite of more than a dozen products, including TikTok, Lemon8, CapCut and Pico as well as platforms specific to the China market, including Toutiao, Douyin, and Xigua, ByteDance has made it easier and more fun for people to connect with, consume, and create content.
Why Join ByteDance
Inspiring creativity is at the core of ByteDance's mission. Our innovative products are built to help people authentically express themselves, discover and connect – and our global, diverse teams make that possible. Together, we create value for our communities, inspire creativity and enrich life – a mission we work towards every day. As ByteDancers, we strive to do great things with great people. We lead with curiosity, humility, and a desire to make impact in a rapidly growing tech company. By constantly iterating and fostering an "Always Day 1" mindset, we achieve meaningful breakthroughs for ourselves, our Company, and our users. When we create and grow together, the possibilities are limitless. Join us.
Diversity & Inclusion
ByteDance is committed to creating an inclusive space where employees are valued for their skills, experiences, and unique perspectives. Our platform connects people from across the globe and so does our workplace. At ByteDance, our mission is to inspire creativity and enrich life. To achieve that goal, we are committed to celebrating our diverse voices and to creating an environment that reflects the many communities we reach. We are passionate about this and hope you are too.
Reasonable Accommodation
ByteDance is committed to providing reasonable accommodations in our recruitment processes for candidates with disabilities, pregnancy, sincerely held religious beliefs or other reasons protected by applicable laws. If you need assistance or a reasonable accommodation, please reach out to us at https://tinyurl.com/RA-request
Job Information
【For Pay Transparency】Compensation Description (Annually) The base salary range for this position in the selected city is $122574 - $259200 annually. Compensation may vary outside of this range depending on a number of factors, including a candidate’s qualifications, skills, competencies and experience, and location. Base pay is one part of the Total Package that is provided to compensate and recognize employees for their work, and this role may be eligible for additional discretionary bonuses/incentives, and restricted stock units. Benefits may vary depending on the nature of employment and the country work location. Employees have day one access to medical, dental, and vision insurance, a 401(k) savings plan with company match, paid parental leave, short-term and long-term disability coverage, life insurance, wellbeing benefits, among others. Employees also receive 10 paid holidays per year, 10 paid sick days per year and 17 days of Paid Personal Time (prorated upon hire with increasing accruals by tenure).
The Company reserves the right to modify or change these benefits programs at any time, with or without notice.
For Los Angeles County (unincorporated) Candidates: Qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records will be considered for employment in accordance with all federal, state, and local laws including the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance for Employers and the California Fair Chance Act. Our company believes that criminal history may have a direct, adverse and negative relationship on the following job duties, potentially resulting in the withdrawal of the conditional offer of employment:
1. Interacting and occasionally having unsupervised contact with internal/external clients and/or colleagues;
2. Appropriately handling and managing confidential information including proprietary and trade secret information and access to information technology systems; and
3. Exercising sound judgment.
How to Get Visa Sponsorship as a Backend Software Engineer
Target companies with a STEM OPT track record
Look for employers who have previously filed H-1B petitions for backend engineers. Consistent filing history signals they understand the sponsorship process and are willing to invest in foreign national employees long-term.
Apply before your OPT start date when possible
Many backend engineering roles have long hiring cycles including technical screens, system design rounds, and offer negotiations. Starting your job search two to three months early gives you buffer before your authorization begins.
Highlight cloud and distributed systems experience
Employers sponsoring backend engineers want specialized skills, not generalists. Expertise in Kubernetes, AWS, or event-driven architectures strengthens your case that your role qualifies as a specialty occupation for H-1B purposes.
Confirm your role qualifies for the STEM OPT extension
Backend Software Engineer roles typically fall under CIP code 11.0701 (Computer Science) or similar STEM codes. Verify your degree's CIP code with your DSO before accepting an offer to confirm you qualify for the 24-month extension.
Get your I-983 training plan signed early
For STEM OPT, your employer must sign a formal training plan with your DSO before the extension is approved. Raise this with HR during onboarding, not after your initial OPT expires, to avoid any gap in work authorization.
Focus applications on Series B and later startups and large tech employers
These companies have established legal and HR infrastructure to handle visa sponsorship. Early-stage startups often lack the resources or stability required to commit to a multi-year sponsorship timeline for backend engineering hires.
Backend Software Engineer jobs are hiring across the US. Find yours.
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Get Access To All JobsFrequently Asked Questions
Do Backend Software Engineer jobs typically qualify for the STEM OPT extension?
Yes, backend software engineering roles almost always qualify. The role must be directly related to your STEM degree, which for most backend engineers means a degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or a related field. Your employer must also be enrolled in E-Verify. Confirm your degree's CIP code with your Designated School Official before applying for the extension.
How do I find Backend Software Engineer jobs that sponsor OPT and H-1B?
Migrate Mate is built specifically for this. You can filter Backend Software Engineer roles by employers who have a sponsorship history, so you're not wasting applications on companies that won't hire on OPT. Generic job boards don't surface visa sponsorship data, which makes it easy to apply to roles where you'd be disqualified before the first interview.
Can I work as a backend engineer for a client site or through a staffing agency on OPT?
Yes, but with important caveats for STEM OPT. Third-party placement arrangements are allowed only if your employer of record, not the end client, signs your I-983 training plan and supervises your work. USCIS has scrutinized staffing agency arrangements, so the relationship must be a genuine employer-employee setup with active oversight from the sponsoring company.
What happens to my OPT if I'm laid off from a Backend Software Engineer role?
You enter a 60-day grace period starting on your last day of employment. During that window, you can search for a new backend engineering role, transfer to a different visa status, or prepare to depart the U.S. If you're on STEM OPT, the same 60-day rule applies. Report any change in employment to your DSO immediately, as failing to do so can jeopardize your status.
Does a Backend Software Engineer role at a remote-first company count as valid OPT employment?
Yes. Remote work is valid OPT employment as long as the employer is a U.S.-based company and you're authorized to work in the U.S. For STEM OPT, your I-983 must accurately reflect your remote work arrangement, including how your employer will supervise your training. Update your DSO if your work location changes significantly during your authorization period.
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