Senior Backend Architect – Scaled Distributed Systems

BAM Ventures; San Jose (CA); On-site; USD 197,000 - 292,000; Full time

Job summary

PayPal is seeking a senior backend leader for Venmo's Consumer Financial Services (CFS) platform in San Jose, CA. You will shape multi-team backend services, define standards, and mentor engineers while partnering with product, security, and legal teams.

You will drive architecture for authentication, fraud risk, and payments scalability, ensure compliance with KYC/AML/GDPR, and own availability and performance in a fast-growing environment.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of relevant experience with a bachelor’s degree or equivalent.
• Bachelor’s or Master’s in CS or related field preferred.
• Experience shipping large-scale distributed systems and leading cross-team initiatives.
• Strong background in backend security, authentication, and API management.

Responsibilities

• Make technical decisions affecting multiple teams across Venmo's CFS platform.
• Establish conventions and processes for engineering teams to follow.
• Lead multi-team initiatives and prioritize work across organizations.
• Mentor senior engineers and communicate complex technical tradeoffs clearly.

Skills

Backend platforms

Distributed systems

Non-technical communication

Mentoring engineers

Technical decision making

Education

Bachelor’s degree

Master’s in computer science

Tools

Python

Java

Go

AWS

Terraform

OAuth 2.0 / OIDC / SAML / WebAuthn

Job description

PayPal is seeking a senior backend leader for Venmo's Consumer Financial Services (CFS) platform in San Jose, CA. You will shape multi-team backend services, define standards, and mentor engineers while partnering with product, security, and legal teams.

You will drive architecture for authentication, fraud risk, and payments scalability, ensure compliance with KYC/AML/GDPR, and own availability and performance in a fast-growing environment.