Staff Software Engineer (Backend, Trust and Safety)

Affirm; Ottawa; Remote; CAD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Remote-first compensation

Wallets for expenses

Learning & Development

Health benefits

Parental Leave

Job summary

Affirm is seeking a Staff Software Engineer for the Trust and Safety Foundations within Checkout Engineering. You will shape the technical strategy, lead complex initiatives, and raise the bar for system design across distributed backend services built with AWS, MySQL, Spark and Kubernetes.

You will own operations, collaborate with product, design and analytics, and mentor engineers while delivering high-availability systems.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of experience designing, developing and launching backend systems at scale using languages like Python or Kotlin.
• Equivalent practical experience or a Bachelor's degree in a related field.
• Strong verbal and written communication skills to collaborate with a global engineering team.

Responsibilities

• Shape the team's technical strategy for a year and lead complex, business-critical initiatives.
• Raise the bar for system design and engineering quality; mentor and share expertise with other engineers.
• Collaborate across product, design and analytics to ensure technical sustainability, risks and trade-offs are understood.
• Own the team's operations and availability with monitoring, runbooks and on-call readiness.
• Set code review and design standards and advocate them beyond the team; develop talent through feedback and leadership.

Skills

Backend systems

Distributed systems

Python/Kotlin

AWS

Kubernetes

System design

Education

Bachelor's degree in related field

Tools

AWS

Kubernetes

Spark

MySQL

Python

Job description

• The Engineering team builds systems that power affirm's mission. We take pride in our craft, building reliable, performant, and scalable solutions that touch every part of the business. Whether we're enabling new ways to pay, ensuring our platforms can scale to the most demanding levels in the industry, or developing seamless servicing experiences, our focus is on solving complex problems through exceptional engineering
• The Trust and Safety Foundations team within Checkout Engineering builds and operates foundational systems and data capabilities that support how affirm understands consumer risk and meets its credit reporting obligations. Our work sits at the intersection of data quality, system reliability, regulatory requirements, and risk, creating critical infrastructure that affirm and its partners depend on to operate accurately and at scale
• As a Staff Software Engineer on Trust and Safety Foundations, you will help shape the team's technical strategy and lead complex, business-critical initiatives across systems and stakeholders. You'll turn ambiguous problems into clear technical approaches, guide projects from strategy through execution, and strengthen the reliability and sustainability of the systems we own
• You’ll also act as a force multiplier by raising the bar for system design and engineering quality, sharing your expertise, and helping other engineers grow. This role requires strong technical judgment, deep ownership, and the ability to navigate complexity in a high-impact domain
• You will be responsible for setting technical strategy for your team on a year-long time scale, and help your team tie it together with critical, business-impacting projects
• You will collaborate across teams in the product development lifecycle by collaborating with product management, design & analytics to ensure technical sustainability, risks and trade-offs are well understood and managed
• You will act as a force-multiplier for your team through your definition and advocacy of technical solutions and operational processes
• You take ownership of your team's operations and availability by ensuring you have the right monitoring, triage rotations, playbooks, policies, testing and alerting in place to support "keep the lights on" & on-call efforts
• You will foster a culture of quality and ownership on your team by setting code review and design standards for your team, and advocating for them beyond your team through your writing and tech talks
• You will help develop talent on your team by providing feedback and guidance, and leading by example

Benefits

• Compensation: We have a simple, flexible, and transparent remote-first compensation structure so you can make the best decisions for yourself and your family
• Spending Wallets: Access tech, food, lifestyle, and family planning wallets for your expenses
• Supportive Communities: Get involved with our employee resource groups and community groups
• Remote-first Workforce: If your role is remote, you can set up shop anywhere in your home country
• Generous Time Off: Take the time you need when life happens
• Health Benefits: Get a plan that fits your needs
• Mental Healthcare: Take care of your mind with great mental health programs
• Parental Leave: Birth and non-birth parents get 18 weeks' paid leave. Plus, a 4-week return-to-work transition program, at full base pay
• Away Days: We offer 20 company-wide paid days off-which help our teams collectively pause to recharge
• Learning & Development: Engage in exciting learning programs to level up your growth

This position requires either equivalent practical experience or a Bachelor's degree in a related fieldYour growth and impact trajectory demonstrates that you have mastered gathering and iterating on feedback from your engineering and cross-functional peersYou have an extensive track record of developing highly available distributed systems using technologies like AWS, MySQL, Spark and KubernetesYou have experience delivering major features, system components or deprecating existing functionality in a system through the definition of a technical and execution plan. You write high quality code that is easily understood and used by othersYou have strong verbal and written communication skills that support effective collaboration with our global engineering teamYou have 8+ years of experience designing, developing and launching backend systems at scale using languages like Python or KotlinYou thrive in ambiguity, and are comfortable moving from low level language idioms all the way to the architecture of large systems to understand how they work