Senior Software Engineer, Lending

Chime; New York (NY); Hybrid; USD 120,000 - 160,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

401k match

Medical, dental, vision benefits

Generous vacation policy

Annual wellness stipend

Paid parental leave

Job summary

Chime is seeking a Senior Software Engineer (L5) in New York to build and optimize backend systems for their lending products. This role involves leading technical initiatives, ensuring system correctness, and collaborating with cross-functional teams.

The ideal candidate will have 8+ years of experience, strong backend engineering skills, and a proven track record of handling complex projects in a fast-paced environment.

Chime offers a competitive salary, generous vacation policy, and comprehensive benefits.

Qualifications

• Experience building and operating production software at scale.
• Ability to own backend systems end-to-end.
• Strong communication skills.

Responsibilities

• Lead architecture and delivery of backend systems for lending products.
• Drive complex initiatives that require collaboration across teams.
• Mentor other engineers through design reviews and feedback.

Skills

Backend engineering fundamentals

Ruby on Rails or comparable framework

APIs and distributed systems

Transactional databases

Asynchronous processing

Caching

Large-scale application architecture

System design judgment

Leadership in complex projects

Communication and collaboration skills

Curiosity and sound judgment

Education

8+ years of experience in software engineering

Job description

About the role

Chime’s Lending org builds the products and platforms that give members access to fair, transparent credit and liquidity when they need it most, from Earned Wage Access through MyPay, to flexible overdraft with SpotMe, to longer‑term Instant Loans, and the platforms that power credit decisions, funding, repayments, and servicing behind the scenes.

We operate some of Chime’s most consequential systems. Our teams build real‑time money movement and decisioning infrastructure at scale, including underwriting and eligibility, ledgering and reconciliation, capital markets workflows, repayment systems, and financial transactions that must be correct, resilient, and auditable.

As a Senior Software Engineer (L5) in Lending, you’ll work at the seam between member‑facing products and the platforms that make them possible. This is a role for engineers who want to own more than a single service or feature area. You’ll lead technical initiatives that cut across products, platforms, and partner teams, helping shape how Lending evolves as a system, not just how one team ships.

You’ll design and build backend systems where correctness, reliability, speed, and operational rigor matter deeply. You’ll partner closely with Product, Design, Risk, Data Science, Analytics, Finance, and Operations to turn ambiguous opportunities into durable solutions, influence technical direction across team boundaries, and help raise the bar for how Lending engineers build together.

In this role, you can expect to

• Lead end‑to‑end architecture and delivery of backend systems that connect member‑facing lending products with shared platforms such as Credit Risk, Capital Markets, Repayments, servicing, and core financial systems
• Drive complex, cross‑team initiatives from problem definition through architecture, implementation, rollout, and iteration, especially where multiple teams or domains need to move in sync
• Own technical problems with real business and member impact, and bring structure, momentum, and clarity when the path is not obvious
• Define and evolve APIs, integration patterns, and data contracts so product teams can move faster without compromising safety, correctness, or reuse
• Design for scale, resiliency, observability, and operational excellence, with strong handling of failures, retries, reconciliation, auditability, and edge cases
• Identify opportunities to turn one‑off product needs into reusable platform capabilities that unlock future velocity across Lending
• Partner closely with Product, Design, Risk, Data Science, Analytics, Finance, and Operations to translate ambiguous problems into practical, high‑leverage technical solutions
• Influence how product and platform teams work together by clarifying ownership, reducing integration friction, and improving the quality of technical decision‑making across boundaries
• Participate in on‑call and incident response, and lead efforts to turn production lessons into lasting improvements in systems, tooling, and engineering practices
• Mentor other engineers through design reviews, technical feedback, and hands‑on partnership, helping raise the leadership capacity of the broader org
• Contribute to roadmap and strategy conversations by identifying where platform investments can unlock multiple product outcomes over time

To thrive in this role, you have

• 8+ years of experience building and operating production software at scale, with a strong track record of owning backend systems end‑to‑end
• Strong backend engineering fundamentals, ideally with Ruby on Rails or a comparable framework, and experience building APIs and distributed systems in production
• Experience with transactional databases, asynchronous processing, caching, and large‑scale application architecture
• Strong system design judgment and the ability to make sound tradeoffs across correctness, scalability, resiliency, speed, and long‑term maintainability
• A track record of leading complex projects that span multiple teams, systems, or business workflows
• Experience working in fintech, lending, banking, payments, risk, or other high‑integrity domains where correctness, traceability, and operational rigor matter deeply
• A high‑ownership mindset and comfort operating in ambiguity, including the ability to create clarity, drive alignment, and move important work forward without waiting for perfect structure
• Strong communication and collaboration skills, with the ability to influence across engineering and cross‑functional teams in a low‑ego, effective way
• A product mindset and strong instincts for connecting technical decisions to member experience and business outcomes
• Experience mentoring engineers and helping teams raise the bar on design quality, testing, operational excellence, and engineering ownership
• Curiosity, sound judgment, and a genuine desire to understand systems deeply and improve them over time

Nice to have

• Experience with lending or credit systems such as underwriting, eligibility, line assignment, limits, repayments, collections, servicing, or decisioning
• Experience with financial platform domains such as capital markets workflows, reconciliations, ledgering, accounting interfaces, partner integrations, or bank integrations
• Familiarity with experimentation, analytics, and data‑informed systems used to safely evolve decisioning and product strategy over time
• Experience helping product teams adopt shared platform capabilities through strong APIs, abstractions, internal tooling, or platform patterns

What we offer for our full‑time, regular employees

• Our in‑office work policy is designed to keep you connected - with four days a week in the office and Fridays from home for those near one of our offices, plus team and company‑wide events depending on location. Whether you’re coming in regularly or are part of our fully remote program, you’ll stay engaged with your work and teammates.
• In‑office perks including backup child, elder, and/or pet care, plus a subsidized commuter benefit to support your regular commute.
• Competitive salary based on experience.
• 401k match plus great medical, dental, vision, life, and disability benefits.
• Generous vacation policy and company‑wide Chime Days, bonus company‑wide paid days off.
• 1% of your time off to support local community organizations of your choice.
• Annual wellness stipend to use towards eligible wellness related expenses.
• Up to 24 weeks of paid parental leave for birthing parents and 12 weeks of paid parental leave for non‑birthing parents.
• Access to Maven, a family planning tool, with $15k lifetime reimbursement for egg freezing, fertility treatments, adoption, and more.
• In‑person and virtual events to connect with your fellow Chimers — cooking classes, guided meditations, music festivals, mixology classes, paint nights, and snack boxes.
• A challenging and fulfilling opportunity to join one of the most experienced teams in FinTech and help millions unlock financial progress.

We know that great work can’t be done without a diverse team and inclusive environment. That’s why we specifically look for individuals of varying strengths, skills, backgrounds, and ideas to join our team. We believe this gives us a competitive advantage to better serve our members and helps us all grow as Chimers and individuals.

Chime is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer. We consider qualified applicants without regard to race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, marital or family status, disability, genetic information, veteran status, or any other legally protected basis under provincial, federal, state, and local laws, regulations, or ordinances. We will also consider qualified applicants with criminal histories in a manner consistent with the requirements of state and local laws, including the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, Cook County Ordinance, NYC Fair Chance Act, and the LA City Fair Chance Ordinance, and consistent with Canadian provincial and federal laws. If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation during any stage of the application process, please contact [e-mail].

To learn more about how Chime collects and uses your personal information during the application process, please see the Chime Applicant Privacy Notice.