Staff Engineer, Embedded Finance & AI

REAP Limited; Hong Kong; On-site; HKD 900,000 - 1,500,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Reap Card stipend

Job summary

REAP Limited is seeking a Staff Engineer to serve as the senior technical owner of its embedded finance platform. You will set architectural direction, drive AI adoption, and partner with Card Engineering Managers to ensure platform initiatives land in product.

You will lead architecture reviews, define scalable patterns, and push for modernization across services, data models, and API contracts, while mentoring senior engineers to raise the technical bar across the Card domain.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of software engineering experience and leadership at Staff or Principal level.
• Deep experience in distributed systems, API platform architecture, or financial infrastructure at scale.
• Proven ability to drive large, multi-team initiatives without direct authority.
• Strong systems thinking: fault-tolerance, observability, data consistency, and performance at scale.
• Excellent communicator: writes RFCs, leads design reviews, and presents technical direction.

Responsibilities

• Define and drive the technical roadmap for the embedded finance platform, focusing on scalability and modernization.
• Lead AI-assisted engineering across product teams and implement agentic automation.
• Collaborate with Card Engineering Managers to align platform work with product needs and provide hands-on guidance.
• Identify systemic engineering quality issues and build plans to address them.
• Mentor senior engineers and set standards for code quality, observability, and reliability.

Skills

Distributed systems

API architecture

Systems thinking

RFC writing

AI/LLM tooling

Tools

Claude Code

GitHub Copilot

Cursor

New Relic

Datadog

Job description

Reap's embedded finance platform powers the card issuing and financial infrastructure that our clients and partners depend on. As Reap scales across new markets and use cases, the platform needs to evolve: from architecture and scalability, to technical debt, to how we build software with AI.

As a Staff Engineer, you will be the senior IC technical owner of this evolution. This is not a management role — it is a high-leverage engineering leadership position for someone who drives change through technical excellence, systems thinking, and cross-team influence. You'll set the architectural direction for the platform, lead AI adoption across engineering teams, and work closely with Card Engineering Managers to ensure platform initiatives land in product.

What You’ll Do

Define and drive the technical roadmap for the embedded finance platform: scalability improvements, architectural modernisation, and tech debt resolution

Lead the adoption of AI-assisted engineering across Reap's Product Engineering teams — from AI-augmented development workflows (e.g., Claude Code, LLM-assisted code review) to agentic automation of repetitive engineering processes

Work closely with Card Engineering Managers to align platform direction with product delivery needs, and provide hands‑on technical guidance on complex problems

Identify systemic engineering quality issues and build the case — and the plan — to address them

Serve as a technical anchor for senior engineers across the Card domain: conducting design reviews, setting standards, and mentoring

Lead architecture review and modernisation of embedded finance systems — service boundaries, data models, API contracts, event flows

Identify and resolve scalability bottlenecks before they become production constraints

Define reusable patterns and standards that Card Engineering teams can build on

Drive platform initiatives end‑to‑end: from RFC through to production delivery and stability

Conduct systematic audits of technical debt across the codebase

Prioritise and sequence debt remediation alongside product delivery work

Advocate for and lead refactors that have long‑term impact on engineering velocity and reliability

AI Enablement & Process Improvement

Lead Reap's AI adoption strategy at the engineering team level — defining what "good" looks like for AI-assisted software development

Build and maintain reusable AI tooling, prompt patterns, and SDLC workflows (e.g., CLAUDE.md standards, agentic code review, automated test generation)

Identify engineering processes where AI can reduce toil and improve quality — and drive those improvements into practice

Track and report on AI adoption signals across Product Engineering teams

Technical Leadership (IC)

Work closely with Card EMs to shape platform roadmap priorities and resolve technical dependencies

Conduct architecture and design reviews for high‑impact initiatives

Set engineering standards for code quality, observability, testability, and reliability across the Card domain

Mentor Staff and Senior engineers; elevate the technical bar across teams

What We’re Looking For

10+ years of software engineering experience, with a track record of technical leadership at Staff or Principal level

Deep experience in distributed systems, API platform architecture, or financial infrastructure at scale

Demonstrated ability to drive large, complex technical initiatives across multiple teams without direct authority

Strong systems thinking: able to reason about fault‑tolerance, observability, data consistency, and performance at scale

Clear and compelling communicator — can write RFCs, lead design reviews, and present technical direction to engineering and executive audiences

Genuine interest in AI/LLM tooling and its application to software engineering workflows

Hands‑on experience with AI‑assisted development tools (e.g., Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, Cursor) and integrating them into engineering team workflows

Our main stack is TypeScript, Node.js, NestJS, and AWS

Nice to Have

Experience in fintech, card issuing, payments, or API platform infrastructure

Experience defining and tracking engineering metrics (DORA, AI‑augmented output, platform reliability)

Familiarity with card Issuing/embedded finance product models and card network infrastructure (Visa, Mastercard, Thredd or equivalent)

Experience leading technical uplift programs: reducing tech debt at scale, improving test coverage, migrating legacy systems

Familiarity with observability tools (New Relic, Datadog, OpenTelemetry) and CI/CD automation

High‑ownership, high‑impact role at the frontier of stablecoin‑powered finance

Work directly with strategic partners and shape how Reap expands its financial ecosystem

Operate with significant autonomy as Reap's technical owner of a key partnership

Join a high‑caliber team across engineering, product, and operations

Reap Card stipend

Use of AI tools at work — and the space to learn, experiment, and grow with them

A culture of innovation, inclusion, and continuous learning