Staff Software Engineer, Credit Underwriting Kitchener, Ontario, Canada

Block, Inc.; Kitchener; Remote; CAD 222,000 - 335,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading financial technology company is seeking a Staff Software Engineer focused on credit underwriting. The role involves solving complex challenges, mentoring engineers, and driving technical strategy. Candidates should have 12+ years of backend engineering experience, expertise in languages like Go or Ruby, and strong collaboration skills. This is a remote position with competitive compensation based on location.

Benefits

Remote work

Medical insurance

Flexible time off

Retirement savings plans

Qualifications

• 12+ years of backend engineering experience with proven impact.
• Strong mentorship and technical communication skills.
• Ability to address complex problems with maintainable solutions.

Responsibilities

• Solve high-risk challenges in underwriting systems.
• Guide technical strategy while contributing hands-on.
• Mentor engineers and foster expertise in underwriting.

Skills

Backend engineering experience

Expertise in Go, Ruby, or Kotlin

Mentorship and collaboration skills

Problem decomposition

Tools

Ruby on Rails

Kafka

React

Job description

Overview

Staff Software Engineer, Credit Underwriting – Remote

Since we opened our doors in 2009, the world of commerce has evolved immensely, and so has Square. After enabling anyone to take payments and never miss a sale, we built integrated, omnichannel solutions to help sellers sell online, manage inventory, offer buy now, pay later functionality, book appointments, engage loyal buyers, and hire and pay staff. Square Banking provides funding options with streamlined access for pre-qualified sellers.

The Role

Square Banking has revolutionized how businesses obtain funding. Since 2014, Square Banking has offered billions of dollars in loans to hundreds of thousands of sellers. As a Staff Software Engineer on the Credit Underwriting Team, you will help grow and expand access to credit for our Square sellers. You will design, build, and own sophisticated underwriting services that leverage data and machine learning to originate and approve various lending products. Our customers are internal teams iterating on existing loan products and experimenting with new loan structures. Our backend powers loan origination and our frontend enables product teams to customize, test, and manage credit policies. You will work primarily on our backend systems.

You Will

• Solve ambiguous, high-risk, and cross-team challenges in underwriting systems by working directly in the code and carrying solutions from implementation to resolution across the lending stack
• Guide the long-term technical strategy for underwriting services while contributing hands-on to critical lending platform capabilities
• Partner with engineering, product, risk, and data science teams in shaping and developing novel lending capabilities
• Raise the technical bar through design reviews and architectural guidance, creating your own designs for underwriting systems and providing feedback on designs across lending teams, setting high standards for reliability, maintainability, and extensibility
• Mentor engineers to grow their technical depth and leadership capabilities, fostering expertise in underwriting domain knowledge and platform development
• Further develop a best-in-class underwriting platform: ensuring robust APIs, clear documentation, and responsive support that enables credit policy teams to move quickly and safely

You Have

• 12+ years of backend engineering experience with proven organizational impact
• Expertise in Go, Ruby, or Kotlin with openness to learn others
• Proven track record of architecting and scaling high-reliability financial systems with high operational excellence, fault tolerance, and data integrity
• Strong mentorship, cross-team collaboration, and technical communication skills, with experience building trust across teams and functions
• Ability to decompose complex, ambiguous problems into maintainable solutions
• (optional) Domain experience in lending, credit underwriting, or consumer credit systems

Technologies We Use and Teach

• Ruby on Rails
• Kafka
• Terraform
• ES6 & TypeScript
• React

Block takes a market-based approach to pay, and pay may vary depending on your location. Canada locations are categorized into one of two zones based on a cost of labor index for that geographic area. The successful candidate’s starting pay will be determined based on job-related skills, experience, qualifications, work location, and market conditions. These ranges may be modified in the future.

Compensation zone

Zone A: 222,900 — 334,300 CAD

Use of AI in Our Hiring Process

We may use automated AI tools to evaluate job applications for efficiency and consistency. These tools comply with local regulations, including bias audits, and we handle all personal data in accordance with state and local privacy laws.

Benefits

Every benefit we offer is designed with one goal: empowering you to do the best work of your career while building the life you want. Remote work, medical insurance, flexible time off, retirement savings plans, and modern family planning are among our offerings. Check out our other benefits at Block.

About Block

Block, Inc. (NYSE: XYZ) builds technology to increase access to the global economy. Each brand unlocks different aspects of the economy. Square makes commerce and financial services accessible to sellers. Cash App enables spending, sending, and storing money. Afterpay transforms how customers manage spending over time. TIDAL is a music platform supporting artists as entrepreneurs. Bitkey is a simple self-custody wallet for bitcoin. Proto is a suite of bitcoin mining products and services. We’re building a financial system open to everyone.

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