Lead Backend Engineer, Remote-First Scalable Card Payments

Affirm; Ottawa; Remote; CAD 153,000 - 213,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health coverage for you and dependents

Tech and wellness stipends

Flexible time off

Job summary

Affirm is a remote-first company building the money movement platform behind our card products. The Card Loan Platform team owns the high-throughput decision engine powering real-time approvals and lifecycle events for every swipe.

We seek a seasoned engineering leader to shape system design, drive technical strategy, and mentor engineers across Product, Analytics, and Design. Strong communication and scale-focused mindset are essential.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience in software development or engineering, with a deep understanding of system design and architecture.
• Motivated leader, inspiring team growth and fostering a culture of continuous learning
• Excellent communicator, adept at sharing complex ideas with diverse audiences.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with a creative and solution-oriented mindset.
• Proficiency in modern programming languages such as Python, Kotlin, or similar.
• Experience with cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, Google Cloud) and containerization (Docker, Kubernetes).
• Knowledge of database systems (SQL, NoSQL), web frameworks, and RESTful API development.
• This position requires either equivalent practical experience or a Bachelor’s degree in a related field.

Responsibilities

• Drive technical strategy by leading the planning, prioritization, and execution of projects, ensuring alignment with product, technical, and business goals.
• Lead the end-to-end system design and development of large-scale, high-availability services. This includes building robust APIs and data models for our micro-service and event-driven architectures.
• Collaborate across functions with partners in Product, Analytics, Design, Legal, and Accounting and to define requirements and execute our card loan attribution and lifecycle strategy.
• Ensure system health and performance by analyzing and troubleshooting complex technical issues, optimizing existing code, and driving solutions that focus on long-term robustness and scalability.
• Mentor and grow the team by guiding junior engineers, leading technical discussions and design reviews, and championing best practices through code review.

Skills

Senior leadership

Communication

Analytical thinking

Python

Kotlin

Cloud platforms

Docker

Kubernetes

RESTful API design

Education

Bachelor's degree (related field)

Equivalent practical experience

Tools

Docker

Kubernetes

AWS

Azure

Google Cloud

SQL

NoSQL

Job description

Affirm is a remote-first company building the money movement platform behind our card products. The Card Loan Platform team owns the high-throughput decision engine powering real-time approvals and lifecycle events for every swipe.

We seek a seasoned engineering leader to shape system design, drive technical strategy, and mentor engineers across Product, Analytics, and Design. Strong communication and scale-focused mindset are essential.