Senior Software Engineer, Backend (Infrastructure)

Affirm; Richmond (VA); On-site; USD 173,000 - 255,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health coverage for you and dependents

Flexible Spending Wallets

Time off

ESPP

Job summary

Affirm is a remote-first company redefining credit with transparent, affordable options. We’re seeking an engineer to own backend systems at scale, partnering with product, design, and analytics to deliver impactful features.

You’ll improve reliability, security workloads, and drive architecture decisions across Kubernetes, AWS, and MySQL stacks. You should bring 4+ years of backend experience, strong communication, and a track record of shipping robust, secure solutions in distributed

Qualifications

• 4+ years designing, developing and launching backend systems at scale.
• Experience with AWS, Kubernetes, and MySQL in production environments.
• Strong ownership, security focus and ability to ship reliably.
• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent in a related field.

Responsibilities

• Own and deliver quarterly goals for your team and mentor engineers.
• Collaborate with product, design, and analytics in planning and trade-offs.
• Identify and lead resolution of project, process, or technology issues.
• Maintain operations and availability of team artifacts with metrics.
• Improve code review standards and promote quality beyond the team.
• Develop talent with feedback and leadership by example.

Skills

Python

Kotlin

Distributed systems

AWS

Kubernetes

Security workloads

Code quality

Education

Bachelor’s degree or equivalent

Tools

Kubernetes

MySQL

Helm charts

Operator patterns

Terraform

Job description

Affirm is reinventing credit to make it more honest and friendly, giving consumers the flexibility to buy now and pay later without any hidden fees or compounding interest.

The Engineering team builds systems that power affirm's mission. We take pride in our craft, building reliable, performant, and scalable solutions that touch every part of the business. Whether we're enabling new ways to pay, ensuring our platforms can scale to the most demanding levels in the industry, or developing seamless servicing experiences, our focus is on solving complex problems through exceptional engineering.

The Trust Infra team elevates the security posture of our infrastructure and services by embedding security in everything from provisioning to deployment, improving developer experience through automation, and building guardrails that enable safe, rapid delivery. Artifacts owned by this team include our secrets management system, authentication and authorization, cryptography, certificate workloads, and other core security components within our Kubernetes and cloud infrastructure.

What You'll Do

• You will be responsible for owning and delivering quarterly goals for your team, leading engineers on your team through ambiguity to solve open-ended problems, and ensuring that everyone is supported throughout delivery.
• You will support your peers and stakeholders in the product development lifecycle by collaborating with product management, design & analytics by participating in ideation, articulating technical constraints, and partnering on decisions that properly consider risks and trade-offs.
• You will proactively identify project, process, technology or business issues, advocate for them, and lead in solving them.
• You will support the operations and availability of your team's artifacts by creating and monitoring metrics, escalating when needed, and supporting "keep the lights on" & on-call efforts.
• You will foster a culture of quality and ownership on your team by setting or improving code review and design standards for your team, and advocating for them beyond your team through your writing and tech talks.
• You will help develop talent on your team by providing feedback and guidance, and leading by example.

What We Look For

• You have 4+ years of experience designing, developing and launching backend systems at scale using languages like Python or Kotlin.
• You have a track record of developing highly available distributed systems using technologies like AWS, MySQL and Kubernetes.
• You have deep expertise of Kubernetes resource management, Helm charts, and operator patterns, centered around security workloads.
• You have experience defining a technical plan for the delivery of a significant feature or system component with an elegant, simple and extensible design. You write high quality code that is easily understood and used by others.
• You are proficient at making significant changes in a large code base, and have developed a suite of tools and practices that enable you and your team to do so safely.
• Your experience demonstrates that you take ownership of your growth, proactively seeking feedback from your team, your manager, and your stakeholders.
• You have strong verbal and written communication skills that support effective collaboration with our global engineering team.
• This position requires either equivalent practical experience or a Bachelor’s degree in a related field.

Pay Grade – N

Equity Grade – 9

Employees new to affirm typically come in at the start of the pay range.

affirm 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: $195,000 - 255,000

USA base pay range (all other U.S. states) per year: $173,000-233,000

Affirm is proud to be a remote-first company! The majority of our roles are remote and you can work almost anywhere within the country of employment. affirmers in proximal roles have the flexibility to work remotely, but will occasionally be required to work out of their assigned affirm office. A limited number of roles remain office-based due to the nature of their job responsibilities.

Benefits

We're extremely proud to offer competitive benefits that are anchored to our core value of people come first. Some key highlights of our benefits package include:

• Health care coverage – affirm covers all premiums for all levels of coverage for you and your dependents
• Flexible Spending Wallets – generous stipends for spending on Technology, Food, various Lifestyle needs, and family forming expenses
• Time off – competitive vacation and holiday schedules allowing you to take time off to rest and recharge
• ESPP – An employee stock purchase plan enabling you to buy shares of affirm at a discount

We believe It's On Us to provide an inclusive interview experience for all, including people with disabilities. We are happy to provide reasonable accommodations to candidates in need of individualized support during the hiring process.

[For U.S. positions that could be performed in Los Angeles or San Francisco] Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance and Los Angeles Fair Chance Initiative for Hiring Ordinance, affirm will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.