Software Engineer - 12 MFTC

Meet: Rakuten Headcount globally: 11,000+Headcount in Australia: 40Role type: 12-month fixed-term contract (salary, not a daily rate)Start date: October 1stLocation: CremorneWays of working: Hybrid, 3 days in officeTech stack: JavaScript, TypeScript, AWS About Rakuten Rakuten Rewards gives millions of members real cash back every time they shop online, and solving that at scale is a genuinely hard technical problem. Most cashback platforms make members wait up to 60 days for affiliate networks to confirm a purchase, and even then the data isn't always accurate or on time. Rakuten Rewards is building the infrastructure to change that: instant cashback confirmation for members, while the verification happens behind the scenes. The team is also setting the standard on affiliate cookie protection, including a "stand down" protocol that stops competing cashback tools from muscling in when Rakuten got there first. It's a live, competitive space, and this team is leading it. The role This is a 12-month fixed-term contract on the Tracking Squad, stepping in while a team member is on leave. You'll be working on the backend systems behind instant cashback: tracking order data as it flows from mobile apps and browser extensions, through Rakuten's internal processing, and out to validation with affiliate partners, so members get a cashback estimate straight away instead of the industry-standard 60-day wait. It's not simple plumbing. You'll be solving for real complexity: purchases that don't qualify for cashback, coupon and gift card matching, and competing cashback tools operating in the same browser session, all at a scale of millions of transactions a day. You'll also get hands-on with the affiliate cookie "stand-down" protocol the team is known for, and use Snowflake to dig into large datasets, spot patterns, and fix root causes rather than symptoms. The team already uses AI seriously, self-healing systems, auto-generated documentation, and automated first-pass PR review, and you'll be expected to lean on it to move fast while still genuinely understanding what your code is doing. About you You're a backend engineer who's genuinely curious and driven, someone who spots what's broken or clunky and just goes and fixes it, rather than waiting for it to land in a ticket. You've got solid experience across some combination of Python, JavaScript, Kafka, AWS, Kubernetes and Snowflake, or you pick up adjacent tech fast. You move easily inside a larger, structured organisation, at home in tools like Jira and Confluence, and confident operating with real autonomy once the problem is defined. You use AI to move faster, but you still care about understanding and standing behind the code you ship. Why you should look at this one Work on genuinely hard, high-scale backend problems, not incremental feature work. You'll be building the infrastructure behind instant cashback for millions of transactions a day, tackling affiliate validation, merchant complexity, and system reliability at a scale most engineers don't get access to, let alone on a fixed-term contract. You'll also get real ownership from day one. Direction here is about the "why," not the "how" - you're trusted to work it out yourself, backed by a team that's leaning hard into AI and automation without losing sight of engineering judgment. It's a chance to sharpen your skills against real production complexity, not sit in meetings about it. The tech exposure is broad: Python, AWS, Docker, Snowflake, Kafka and agentic AI tooling, plus regular collaboration with engineering counterparts in the US and Canada. Twelve months here gives you a concentrated stretch of high-scale, high-visibility work you can take anywhere next. And because it's fixed-term, there's no slow ramp-up or waiting your turn - you're expected to make an impact fast, on problems that genuinely matter, in a team that will notice. If you want a focused run at meaningful engineering work rather than a long, quiet settling-in period, this is it. Next steps Hi we’re affix, proud talent acquisition partners of Rakuten. If this resonates with you, then apply! We can’t wait to meet you.