Manager, Software Engineering (Resilience Engineering)

Affirm, Inc.; United States; Remote; USD 204,000 - 264,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health coverage

Tech stipends

Flexible time off

Stock purchase plan

Job summary

Affiirm is seeking an Engineering Manager to lead the Resilience Engineering team. You will drive platforms and tooling for safe production experimentation, focusing on load testing and chaos engineering.

You will mentor engineers, partner with infrastructure, product, and security, and embed resilience validation into the software lifecycle across the org.

Qualifications

• Proven experience leading engineering teams in reliability, infrastructure, or distributed systems.
• Hands-on production load testing, chaos engineering, or large-scale system validation.
• Experience with a chaos engineering vendor such as Gremlin or Harness.
• Strong understanding of failure modes in distributed systems (latency, partial failure, cascading outages).
• Experience with cloud-native environments (AWS, Kubernetes) and observability tooling.
• Strong programming background (Python, Kotlin, Java, or similar).
• Excellent problem-solving and leadership with cross-team impact.
• Bachelor's degree or equivalent practical experience.

Responsibilities

• Define and drive the vision for resilience engineering with production load testing and chaos engineering.
• Lead and mentor engineers building platforms and tooling for safe production experimentation.
• Partner with infra, product, and security leadership to embed resilience validation into the SDLC.
• Establish best practices for safely testing system limits and failure scenarios in production.
• Own design and evolution of platforms enabling safe production load testing and fault injection.
• Ensure safeguards, isolation boundaries, and automated rollback mechanisms to protect users.
• Build observability, traceability, and auditability for resilience experiments.
• Drive reliability improvements by identifying weaknesses through load testing and chaos experiments.

Skills

Resilience engineering

Production load testing

Chaos engineering

Distributed systems

AWS

Kubernetes

Python

Java

Kotlin

Education

Bachelor's degree in related field

Tools

Gremlin

Harness

Job description

Manager, Software Engineering (Resilience Engineering)

Remote US

At Affiirm, 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

• Define and drive the vision for resilience engineering at Affiirm, 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.
• 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 Affiirm typically come in at the start of the pay range. Affiirm 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 inAffiirm 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 Affiirm 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 youOur 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 Affiirm 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: Affiirm considers qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records, as required by law.

Demographic Survey Statement (US-based roles)

Affiirm is dedicated to building an inclusive culture where Affiirmers belong and have an equal opportunity to thrive.

To help us assess our outreach efforts, we invite candidates to voluntarily share information through a short demographic survey. This information is:

• Completely optional
• Anonymized and stored in aggregate
• Not accessible to recruiters or hiring managers at the individual level
• Never used in any hiring decision

Your decision to provide or withhold this information will not impact your candidacy in any way.

Voluntary Self-Identification

For government reporting purposes, we ask candidates to respond to the below self-identification survey.Completion of the form is entirely voluntary. Whatever your decision, it will not be considered in the hiringprocess or thereafter. Any information that you do provide will be recorded and maintained in a confidential file.

As set forth in Affiirm’s Equal Employment Opportunity policy,we do not discriminate on the basis of any protected group status under any applicable law.

If you believe you belong to any of the categories of protected veterans listed below, please indicate by making the appropriate selection.As a government contractor subject to the Vietnam Era Veterans Readjustment Assistance Act (VEVRAA), we request this information in order to measurethe effectiveness of the outreach and positive recruitment efforts we undertake pursuant to VEVRAA. Classification of protected categories is as follows:

A "disabled veteran" is one of the following: a veteran of the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service who is entitled to compensation (or who but for the receipt of military retired pay would be entitled to compensation) under laws administered by the Secretary of Veterans Affairs; or a person who was discharged or released from active duty because of a service-connected disability.

A "recently separated veteran" means any veteran during the three-year period beginning on the date of such veteran's discharge or release from active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval, or air service.

An "active duty wartime or campaign badge veteran" means a veteran who served on active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service during a war, or in a campaign or expedition for which a campaign badge has been authorized under the laws administered by the Department of Defense.

An "Armed forces service medal veteran" means a veteran who, while serving on active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service, participated in a United States military operation for which an Armed Forces service medal was awarded pursuant to Executive Order 12985.