Backend Engineer • Staff

Who you are

You have 5+ years of backend engineering experience, particularly in building production systems that scale effectively. You’ve owned services from design through deployment and have navigated the complexities of debugging distributed systems. Your expertise in Java and backend technologies allows you to create high-performance APIs that support millions of users.

You possess a deep understanding of architectural patterns and have experience defining platform abstractions that enable product teams to launch and experiment with new features safely. You are skilled in collaborating with cross-functional teams, including product management and analytics, to shape the technical direction of incentive systems and ensure their long-term sustainability.

You take pride in fostering a culture of quality and ownership within your team. You set clear design and code review standards and advocate for best practices through written proposals and technical discussions. Your leadership style emphasizes mentorship, providing actionable feedback and technical guidance to help develop talent within your team.

Desirable

Experience with cloud platforms and microservices architecture is a plus, as is familiarity with monitoring and alerting systems that ensure the availability of business-critical applications. You are comfortable with making trade-offs that inform roadmap decisions and have a knack for balancing technical debt with feature delivery.

What you'll do

In this role, you will be responsible for setting the technical strategy for your team over a year-long horizon. You will own backend platforms that power incentives and growth initiatives across Affirm, directly influencing customer acquisition and retention. Your work will involve defining APIs and architectural patterns that enable product teams to safely launch and experiment with incentive-based experiences.

You will collaborate closely with product management, analytics, and partner teams to shape the technical direction of incentive systems. This includes ensuring that systems are built with long-term sustainability and correctness in mind, while also making clear trade-offs that inform roadmap decisions. You will act as a force-multiplier for your team, helping them to achieve their goals through effective technical leadership.

You will also take ownership of your team’s operations and availability, ensuring robust monitoring, alerting, playbooks, and on-call practices are in place for critical systems. Your leadership will help foster a culture of quality and ownership, as you set clear design and code review standards and advocate for them beyond your immediate team.

What we offer

At Affirm, we are committed to reinventing credit to make it more honest and friendly. You will be part of a team that values collaboration, innovation, and a commitment to quality. We offer competitive compensation and benefits, along with opportunities for professional growth and development. Join us in making a meaningful impact on how consumers interact with credit and financial services.