Senior Software Engineer, Backend (Online Storage)

Affirm, Inc.; Northern (KY); Hybrid; USD 173,000 - 255,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health coverage

Tech stipends

Generous time off

Employee stock purchase plan

Job summary

Affirm, Inc. is seeking a Senior Software Engineer, Backend (Online Storage) to build and scale distributed SQL databases, including MySQL and TiDB, across a Kubernetes-based platform.

You will own the control plane, migrations, and networking to ensure low latency, high reliability, and seamless upgrades for mission-critical data services. You will collaborate with product, design and analytics, drive quarterly goals, and mentor teammates while delivering robust data infrastructure that

Qualifications

• 5+ years of software engineering experience in backend systems.
• Experience designing, developing and launching backend systems at scale.
• Hands-on experience with large-scale database deployments.
• Expertise in distributed databases and SQL tuning/optimization.
• Experience with zero-downtime migrations and major version upgrades.

Responsibilities

• Build and operate the control plane for large-scale distributed SQL databases (MySQL, TiDB).
• Design reliable schema/data migrations with zero downtime.
• Own networking stack connections to storage on Kubernetes and tune latency/failover.
• Lead team goals, guide engineers, and support delivery.
• Collaborate with product/analytics to align on constraints and trade-offs.

Skills

5+ years experience

Python

Kotlin

AWS

MySQL

Terraform

Kubernetes

Distributed systems

SQL tuning

Education

Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience

Tools

ProxySQL

RDS Proxy

PgBouncer

Job description

Senior Software Engineer, Backend (Online Storage)

Remote US

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.

The Data and Storage Services team is responsible for affirm's data infrastructure across OLTP and OLAP systems, spanning critical online checkout databases, batch orchestration, streaming infrastructure, event-driven frameworks, BI, analytics tooling, large-scale data platforms, and agentic data tools such as semantic layers and internal platform data applications. Our mission is to provide trustworthy, intuitive, and cost-efficient solutions for affirmers to secure, store, analyze, and transform data at exceptional scale.

The Online Storage team provides a set of managed databases as a platform, used to persist data for all affirm services. Our platform enables self-service access to OLTP storage systems, including Relational DB(MySQL), KV(DynamoDB), Distributed SQL(TiDB) and Cache(Redis). As a team, we are responsible for various data and access patterns, including but not limited to mission-critical financial transactional data, data science models, and any new persistence use case. These responsibilities require us to learn and gain deep expertise in various database systems.

We are looking for a talented Senior Software Engineer who can architect, build and scale Relational and Distributed SQL Databases identifying opportunities to improve how we build, productionize, operate and improve this mission-critical infrastructure to unlock substantial value within our business. You'll have the opportunity to directly influence your team's roadmap in close collaboration with your peers, share your knowledge and expertise with others and learn from some of the best on our shared mission to deliver honest financial products that improve lives.

What you’ll do

• You will build and operate the control plane for large-scale distributed SQL databases such as MySQL and TiDB, automating provisioning, failover, backups and upgrades end to end.
• You will design and execute reliability-focused schema and data migrations across multi-tenant database clusters, with zero downtime for the products that depend on them.
• You will own the networking stack that connects services to storage on Kubernetes, including connection proxies such as ProxySQL, and tune it for latency, resilience and failover.
• 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 a total of 5+ years of experience as a software engineer.
• You are experienced in designing, developing and launching backend systems at scale technologies like Python, Kotlin, AWS, MySQL, Terraform and Kubernetes.
• You have in-depth, hands‑on experience with large-scale database deployments in a production environment.
• You have expertise in distributed databases and database technologies such as MySQL(Preferred), TiDB(Preferred), Postgres, Spanner, Vitess, CockroachDB etc.
• Solid understanding of distributed database architecture, data modeling, and performance tuning. Particularly, expertise in SQL tuning and performance optimization techniques.
• You have expertise in database benchmarking, load testing, and capacity planning.
• You are familiar with connection poolers and proxies such as ProxySQL, RDS Proxy, Pg Bouncer, PgDog etc.
• You have built control‑plane or automation tooling for databases, such as provisioning, failover, upgrades or schema migrations, ideally on Kubernetes.
• You have executed zero‑downtime migrations and major version upgrades on production databases, and have built CLI tooling or runbooks to make those procedures repeatable.
• You understand Kubernetes networking, service discovery and TLS well enough to debug connection and failover problems between services and databases.
• 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

#LI-Remote

Remote-first with flexibility built inaffirm 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 affirm 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 affirm 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: affirm considers qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records, as required by law.

Demographic Survey Statement (US-based roles)

Affirm is dedicated to building an inclusive culture where affirmers 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.

How do you identify? (gender identity) Select...

How do you identify? (race/ethnicity) Select...

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 aconfidential file.

As set forth in affirm'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 categoriesis 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.