Manager, Software Engineering (Resilience Engineering)

Affirm; San Diego (CA); Remote; USD 230,000 - 290,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

100% health coverage

Tech stipend

Flexible time off

Employee stock purchase plan

Job summary

Affim is seeking a seasoned Engineering Manager to lead our Resilience Engineering team, focused on safe production validation through load testing and chaos engineering. You will shape the strategy, mentor engineers, and partner with infrastructure, product, and security leaders to embed resilience into the software lifecycle.

You will own platforms for controlled production tests, implement safeguards, observability, and incident response practices, and drive reliability improvements across

Qualifications

• Proven experience leading engineering teams in reliability, infrastructure, or distributed systems.
• Hands-on experience with production load testing, chaos engineering, or large-scale system validation.
• Experience leveraging a chaos-engineering vendor such as Gremlin, Harness, or something similar.
• Strong understanding of failure modes in distributed systems, including latency, partial failure, and cascading outages.
• Experience building or operating systems with strong safety guarantees (isolation, rate limiting, guardrails, auditability).
• Familiarity with cloud-native environments (AWS, Kubernetes) and observability tooling.
• Strong programming background (e.g., Python, Kotlin, Java, or similar).
• Excellent problem-solving skills and the ability to balance long-term resilience investments with immediate business needs.
• Strong communication and leadership skills, with a track record of influencing engineering practices across teams.
• This position requires either equivalent practical experience or a Bachelor’s degree in a related field.

Responsibilities

• Define and drive the resilience engineering vision and practices.
• Lead and mentor engineers building platforms and tooling for safe production experimentation.
• Partner with leadership to embed resilience validation into the software development lifecycle.
• Establish best practices for safely testing production limits and failures.
• Own design and evolution of platforms for safe production load testing and fault injection.
• Ensure safeguards: isolation boundaries, approval workflows, and automatic rollback.
• Provide end-to-end observability, traceability, and auditability for resilience experiments.
• Drive reliability improvements via load tests and chaos experiments.

Skills

Leadership

Load testing

Chaos engineering

Distributed systems

Observability

Reliability engineering

Communication

Problem solving

Python

Java

Kotlin

Education

Bachelor's degree or equivalent

Tools

AWS

Kubernetes

Gremlin

Harness

Prometheus

OpenTelemetry

Job description

At affirm, we exist for the moments that matter—giving people a clear, predictable way to pay over time, with no hidden fees, no surprises, and no tradeoffs on what matters most.

We are seeking a seasoned Engineering Manager to lead our Resilience Engineering team. This role is critical in ensuring the safety and reliability of our production systems through proactive validation techniques, including production load testing and chaos engineering.

You will lead the development of systems and practices that allow engineers to safely test system behavior under stress and failure conditions in production, ensuring issues are discovered and mitigated before they impact real users.

What you’ll do

Leadership & Strategy

• Define and drive the vision for resilience engineering at Affim, with a focus on production load testing and chaos engineering as first‑class engineering practices.
• Lead and mentor a team of engineers building platforms and tooling for safe production experimentation.
• Partner with infrastructure, product, and security leadership to embed resilience validation into the software development lifecycle.
• Establish best practices for safely testing system limits and failure scenarios in production.

Systems & Operations

• Own the design and evolution of platforms that enable safe, controlled production load testing and fault injection.
• Ensure strong safeguards are in place, including isolation boundaries, approval workflows, and automated rollback mechanisms to protect real users.
• Build systems that provide end-to-end observability, traceability, and auditability for all resilience experiments.
• Drive reliability improvements by systematically identifying weaknesses through load testing and chaos experiments.
• Establish monitoring, alerting, and incident response practices tailored to proactive resilience validation.

Collaboration & Enablement

• Work closely with engineering teams to design and execute production load tests and chaos experiments safely.
• Partner with infrastructure teams to build guardrails around tests and experimentations.
• Enable teams to adopt resilience practices by providing reusable tooling, frameworks, and standardized workflows.
• Identify systemic weaknesses and lead cross‑functional efforts to improve reliability and fault tolerance.
• Evangelize a culture of “test failure before failure tests you” across the organization.

What we look for

• Proven experience leading engineering teams in reliability, infrastructure, or distributed systems.
• Hands‑on experience with production load testing, chaos engineering, or large‑scale system validation.
• Experience with leveraging a chaos engineering vendor such as Gremlin, Harness, or something similar.
• Strong understanding of failure modes in distributed systems, including latency, partial failure, and cascading outages.
• Experience building or operating systems with strong safety guarantees (isolation, rate limiting, guardrails, auditability).
• Familiarity with cloud‑native environments (AWS, Kubernetes) and observability tooling.
• Strong programming background (e.g., Python, Kotlin, Java, or similar).
• Excellent problem‑solving skills and the ability to balance long‑term resilience investments with immediate business needs.
• Strong communication and leadership skills, with a track record of influencing engineering practices across teams.
• This position requires either equivalent practical experience or a Bachelor’s degree in a related field.

Base Pay Grade - P

Equity Grade - 13

Employees new to Affim typically come in at the start of the pay range. Affim focuses on providing a simple and transparent pay structure which is based on a variety of factors, including location, experience and job‑related skills.

Base pay is part of a total compensation package that may include equity rewards, monthly stipends for health, wellness and tech spending, and benefits (including 100% subsidized medical coverage, dental and vision for you and your dependents.)

USA base pay range (CA, WA, NY, NJ, CT) per year: 230,000 - 290,000

USA base pay range (all other U.S. states) per year: 204,000 - 264,000

Remote-first with flexibility built in

Affim is proud to be a remote-first company. Most roles can be done from almost anywhere within the country of employment. Some positions may occasionally require in‑person work at an Affim office, and a few are office‑based due to the nature of the work. All new hires will be invited to attend an in‑person onboarding experience.

Benefits Designed For You

Our benefits reflect our commitment to care, transparency, and flexibility. Here are a few highlights:

• Health coverage at no cost: We cover 100% of premiums for employees and their dependents.
• Spending stipends: Monthly stipends support your tech setup, and the ability to choose health and wellness options that are right for you.
• Time off to recharge: Flexible time off and generous holiday calendars help you rest when you need to.
• Own a piece of what you build: Our employee stock purchase plan (ESPP) lets you buy Affim stock at a discount.

We’re committed to providing an inclusive interview process, including accommodations for candidates with disabilities. If you need support, we’re happy to help.

For positions based in San Francisco or Los Angeles: Affim considers qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records, as required by law.