Principal Software Engineer

Marqeta; United States; Remote; USD 242,000 - 303,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Flexible First

Remote work in US

Equity & Employee Stock Purchase Plan

Health insurance options

Parental leave

Job summary

Marqeta seeks a Principal Software Engineer for the Core Issuing & Processing team. You will lead high-impact initiatives across issuing and processing engines, own the technical roadmap, and partner with engineering leaders to drive excellence.

This role offers Flexible First options with remote in the United States, national locations, and a focus on scalable, secure systems and multi-region deployments.

Qualifications

• 12+ years of hands-on software engineering experience.
• Experience with microservices in cloud environments (AWS preferred).
• Ability to design scalable, secure, fault-tolerant systems.

Responsibilities

• Own the technical roadmap and author system designs that enable scalable card issuing and processing products.
• Spend significant time in the codebase – writing, reviewing, and optimizing code across the issuing and processing stack.
• Identify and drive high-impact technical initiatives that improve performance, reliability, and cost-efficiency of core processing engines.
• Collaborate with Product Managers to analyze requirements and provide technical recommendations across onboarding, issuing, digital wallets, authorization & clearing, transaction controls, and ledger.
• Mentor and guide technical leads, influence stakeholders, and establish success metrics to drive organization-wide technical excellence.
• Apply and evangelize modern best practices in software designs to increase resiliency and scalability.

Skills

Software engineering

Cloud technologies (AWS)

Microservices

Security engineering

Code reviews

Leadership

Java

Springboot

Kubernetes

Terraform

Helm

Kafka

JPOS

AWS services

Education

Master's degree in Software Engineering

Tools

Java

Springboot

Kubernetes

Terraform

Helm

Kafka

JPOS

AWS

Job description

As Marqeta’sPrincipal Software Engineer on the Core Issuing & Processing team, you will work across the entire domain to stand up and drive high-impact projects for our customers from inception to completion. You will take on highly technical initiatives that optimize our issuing and processing engines, own the technical roadmap for the core platform, and partner with engineering leaders to drive engineering and operational excellence throughout the organization.

We workFlexible First. This role can be performed remotely in the United States, only in one of our National locations, which you can review here. The Core Issuing and Processing team owns the foundational stack that powers Marqeta's core business. We develop and maintain the systems that span six critical domains: Onboarding, Issuing, Digital Wallets, Authorization & Clearing, Transaction Controls, and Ledger. Together, these systems form the backbone of Marqeta's card issuing and payment processing platform.

The Impact You’ll Have

• Own the technical roadmap and author system designs that enable scalable, secure, and operationally efficient card issuing and payment processing products for our customers.
• Spend significant time in the codebase – writing, reviewing, and optimizing code across the issuing and processing stack.
• Identify and drive high-impact technical initiatives that improve the performance, reliability, and cost-efficiency of our core processing engines.
• Collaborate with Product Managers to analyze requirements and provide technical recommendations across onboarding, issuing, digital wallets, authorization & clearing, transaction controls, and ledger.
• Mentor and guide technical leads, influence stakeholders, and establish success metrics to drive organization-wide technical excellence.
• Apply and evangelize modern best practices in your software designs and implementations to increase the platform's resiliency and scalability.

Who You Are

• 12+ years of hands‑on software engineering experience.
• Demonstrated passion for software engineering excellence, including design principles, fault tolerance practices, scalability, cost, security & privacy considerations, and test‑driven development.
• Experience partnering with product teams to ideate and bring innovative solutions to market.
• Experience developing and scaling microservices using modern cloud technologies, preferably AWS.
• Experience working with high volume / low latency data infrastructures.
• Solid understanding of security engineering best practices and demonstrable experience in designing solutions that adhere to those standards.
• Passion for non‑functional challenges, namely: Scale, Cost, Reliability, Performance, High Availability.
• Experience building systems running in multiple regions.
• Team‑oriented approach – can effectively lead a project, participate as an influential team member, and work cross‑functionally with other organizations.
• Experience with our tech stack, namely Java, Springboot, Kubernetes, Terraform, Helm, Kafka, JPOS, and AWS services.

Nice-To-Haves

• Master's degree in Software Engineering.
• Experience in payment processing, card issuing, or the payments industry.
• Domain experience in authorization, clearing, settlement, tokenization, or ledger systems.

Your Manager

• Arash Afrooze, Sr Director, Software Engineering

Typical Process

• Application Submission
• Recruiter phone call
• Hiring manager video call
• Virtual “Onsite” consisting of 4-5, 45 min calls

Compensation and Benefits

Marqeta is a Flex First company which allows you to choose your best working environment, whether that be from home or at a company office. To support Flex First, we calibrate pay to a competitive value according to working location. Compensation is aligned according to the National geo-tier within the United States:

• National: A baseline tier that applies to most of the geographic territory of the United States.

When determining salaries, we consider several factors including, but not limited to, skills, prior experience, and work location. The new‑hire base salary range for this position is:

• National: $242,400 - $303,000

We also believe in recognizing the contributions of our people. That's why we award annual bonuses to eligible employees, rewarding both individual performance and the success of the entire company.

Along with monetary compensation, Marqeta offers

• Multiple health insurance options
• Flexible time off – take what you need
• Retirement savings program with company contribution and after tax contributions
• Equity in a publicly‑traded company and an Employee Stock Purchase Program
• Family‑forming benefits, fertility support, and up to 20 weeks of Parental Leave
• Free therapy sessions, financial and professional coaching, and legal advice
• Monthly stipend to support our remote work model
• Annual “development dollars” to support our people growth and development
• Through Flex First, the freedom to live and work wherever you and your family thrive

About Marqeta

Marqeta is on a mission to change the way money moves. We’re one of the earliest enablers of embedded finance, a market opportunity sized up in the trillions. Our card issuing platform provides unprecedented flexibility and control for companies to issue cards, authorize transactions, and manage payment operations in real time. Marqeta is powering the most well known brands in the new economy (Block, Cash App, affirm, Instacart, Doordash, Uber, Walmart, etc). You don’t need to be a Payments expert to join the Marqeta Team, let us help you with that. This is the opportunity of a lifetime to work with innovators around the world and unlock equitable financial access for all.

Marqeta’s Values

– Solve for the Customer: With a deep understanding of our customers' business and empathy for their needs, we deliver products and services that drive their success. Earning and keeping their trust guides everything we do.

– Do What's Right: Knowing businesses and livelihoods depend on us, we pursue solutions that disrupt responsibly and deliver high-quality results that our customers count on. We own our work from start to finish.

– Simplify and Innovate: We approach challenges with curiosity and take smart risks. Innovation comes from finding better, simpler ways to achieve extraordinary outcomes.

– Win as a Team: We succeed together by embracing diverse perspectives and pushing each other to raise the bar. We lead with humility and set aside hierarchy to work as a team.

– Make it Count: We drive forward with focus and agility. With a sense of urgency and purpose, we get the job done, and done right.

Equal Employment Opportunity, Accommodations and Privacy

Marqeta is an equal opportunity employer committed to an inclusive workplace that fosters belonging. We do not discriminate based on race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, lactation, childbirth, or related medical conditions), veteran status or uniformed service member status, age, national origin or ancestry, citizenship or immigration status, physical or mental disability, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, genetic information (including testing or characteristics) or any other characteristic protected by applicable law. We also consider qualified applicants with criminal histories, consistent with legal requirements.

Marqeta endeavors to make reasonable accommodations for applicants with disabilities. If you are an individual with a disability and require a reasonable accommodation to submit this application, complete any pre‑employment testing, or otherwise participate in the employee selection process, please submit this form with your specific accommodation request.

Personal data that is provided as part of the application and recruitment process is processed in accordance with the Applicant Privacy Notice. Additional information for California residents can be found here.