Engineering at scale. Built in-house
We crawl the web, process trillions of data points, and deliver real-time insights.
Ahrefs is built on a foundation of innovative engineering, high-performance systems, and a deep obsession with data.
Our tools are powered by some of the most advanced infrastructure in the marketing intelligence space designed and operated entirely in-house.
We crawl the entire web at massive scale, process trillions of data points, and deliver real-time insights to millions of users worldwide.
Our motto reflects how we approach engineering and learning.
then do it right,
then do it
Engineers at Ahrefs are very independent and trusted with a lot of agency. Decisions are made by the people closest to the problem. A single developer can take a tool or system from idea to production. The teams own entire products.
Our team is small and our code is compact. We design with scale in mind: systems are expected to run for long periods of time, self-heal when needed, and remain simple enough to debug easily. Performance, clarity, and robustness matter.
We focus on solving root problems, not just symptoms. Does it mean investigating a CPU bug? So be it! We also encourage opensource contribution, by publishing code and by contributing back to tools we depend on.
We strive to keep things simple. Simplicity makes scaling, debugging, and improving easier. It helps us stay focused on what matters: building powerful tools that work reliably at scale, bringing value to customers. It makes tools last too, by keeping the cost of changes and maintenance low.
Our primary backend language. We use OCaml for high-performance, large-scale data processing thanks to its functional paradigm, static typing, and maintainability. It's central to everything we build—and we contribute heavily back to its ecosystem.
We use Melange with ReasonML syntax across our frontend stack for consistency with OCaml, React support via JSX, and the power of type-safe web development. We also maintain open-source bindings for key libraries.
From storage engines to distributed systems, we write performance-critical infrastructure in C++.
We operate a custom fork of Clickhouse tailored to our infrastructure. Our Clickhouse team focuses on parallel query execution, multi-device performance, and high-availability enhancements.
Our machine learning team uses Python to build and deploy models, as well as to manage data engineering workflows.
Our open-source hub, where we share tools, libraries, and contributions that power Ahrefs’ infrastructure and support the wider developer community.
A backend for the OCaml compiler that allows compiling OCaml and Reason code to efficient and readable JavaScript. It provides deep integration with the OCaml ecosystem and tooling. We have been actively involved in the Melange project from its early days and continue to actively contribute.
A Deep Learning framework that implements low level backends, puts emphasis on shape inference and concise notation, supports "single machine multiple devices" parallelism, multicore CPUs. Currently, at the core OCANNL is explicitly compiled and synchronized.
We are a member of OCSF (OCaml Software foundation), a non-profit foundation whose mission is to promote, protect, and advance the OCaml programming language and its ecosystem, and to support and facilitate the growth of a diverse and international community of OCaml users.
We support OPAM, OCaml’s package manager, contributing to its reliability, performance, and tooling for our projects and the community.
Build the systems behind our crawler, search engine, and marketing intelligence tools. Process petabytes of data and keep everything reliable and fast.
Power the internal frameworks and APIs used across products. Optimize observability, performance, and developer UX.
Frontend in Ahrefs is not about UI, it's about bringing data to the customer all the way from the databases. This includes UI, but also involves working on API layer processing data.
Own infrastructure reliability at global scale. From automation and deployments to performance tuning and incident response.
Build ML services for web-scale search, content understanding, and ranking. Tackle LLM tuning, dense retrieval, and more.
Customize Clickhouse to scale with our needs: low-latency querying, advanced SQL features, fault-tolerant analytics.
Working largely in C++. Design and build low-level, high-performance systems, from Linux internals to distributed compute layers and storage engines.
employees say
Being a Data Scientist at Ahrefs isn’t just about crunching numbers — it’s about learning, collaborating, and making real impact. The supportive team, challenging projects, and dynamic environment make every day an exciting opportunity for growth.
Xibeijia,
Data Scientist
Every day is a new day where I get to solve interesting problems, or make improvements that have a positive impact on thousands of users.
Bryan,
Frontend Engineer
I love being part of the Ahrefs engineering team. With smart, curious colleagues, top-tier infrastructure, and real ownership even for juniors, what’s not to like? Expectations are high, but Ahrefs encourages experimentation and growth, keeping everyone engaged and challenged.
Rytis,
Backend Engineer
Before you apply, discover how we think about engineering
Do the simplest thing that could possibly work
The Grug Brained Developer: A layman's guide to thinking like the self-aware smol brained
Chesterton’s Fence: A Lesson in Thinking
I do whatever I want at work and I haven’t been fired yet
Make it run, make it right, make it fast
80% of result can be achieved by 20% effort
Application
Simply apply for the relevant role on our careers site.
Recruiter screen
Speak with our recruiter to find out more about Ahrefs, our teams, culture, and get some hints on the process ahead.
Take home task
The nature of the task depends on the role you're applying for — the recruiter will guide you through it. We don't really set strict deadlines or make the tasks too arbitrary. We try to make them fun!
Interview
These are fairly unstructured technical discussions — a chance for us to learn more about you, and for you to learn more about our teams and work. There's no LeetCode, coding puzzles, or whiteboard exercises.
Offer 🎉
Relax, the pressure's off! No more interviews, no more tasks. Just look forward to joining the team!