Staff Software Engineer, Backend

About the Role

Join Affirm's International Expansion Unit to build and scale critical identity systems that are foundational to our global growth and customer trust.

Responsibilities

• Set technical strategy for your team on a year-long time scale, aligning with business-impacting projects.
• Collaborate across product development lifecycle with product management, design, and analytics to manage technical sustainability, risks, and trade-offs.
• Act as a force-multiplier by defining and advocating for technical solutions and operational processes.
• Own team's operations and availability through robust monitoring, triage rotations, playbooks, testing, and alerting.
• Foster a culture of quality and ownership by setting and advocating for design and code review standards.
• Develop team talent through feedback, guidance, and leading by example.

Requirements

• 8+ years of experience designing, developing, and launching backend systems at scale using languages like Python or Kotlin.
• Extensive track record of developing highly available distributed systems using technologies like AWS, MySQL, Spark, and Kubernetes.
• Experience delivering major features, system components, or deprecating functionality through technical and execution plans.
• Ability to write high-quality, easily understood code.
• Thrives in ambiguity, comfortable analyzing systems from low-level idioms to high-level architecture.
• Demonstrated mastery in gathering and iterating on feedback from engineering and cross-functional peers.
• Strong verbal and written communication skills for effective global collaboration.

About the Team or Role Impact

Identity at Affirm is mission-critical, forming the first step of the customer journey and the foundation of global expansion. The International Expansion Unit (IEU) owns Identity for markets outside North America, placing the team at the center of Affirm’s global strategy. The scope includes building and expanding Identity Data Management, KYC Verification, and Decisioning capabilities, while driving architectural changes impacting Identity services globally. This role directly impacts approval rates, conversion, and fraud exposure, shaping foundational processes that unlock revenue and build customer trust on a global scale.