Senior Staff Software Engineer - AI-First Banking Systems

Affirm; St. Louis (MO); On-site; USD 204,000 - 264,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Remote-first

Employee stock purchase plan

Health coverage for you and dependents

Flexible spending wallets

Job summary

Affirm is reinventing credit by building its own bank and seeks a Staff Software Engineer to anchor a small, AI-native team that runs the bank's core systems. You will set architectural direction, own the hardest problems end-to-end, and shape the integration boundary with Affirm Inc while maintaining regulatory separation.

You will lead design reviews, drive AI-enabled development, and partner with Legal, Compliance, and Risk to ensure compliance is built into the product from day one.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of software engineering experience, staff-level, hands-on builder credentials, and a track record of owning ambiguous, high-stakes systems end-to-end through launch and operations.
• Ability to navigate ambiguity at large scale, make prioritization decisions, and balance speed with engineering judgment.
• Interest in leveraging AI to drive outcomes using AI-assisted development tools and workflows.
• Preference for simplicity, buy over build, and standalone-operability over excessive tooling.
• Experience defining technical direction and implementing multi-quarter architecture and strategy without direct managerial title.
• Experience with public cloud infrastructure (AWS preferred), infrastructure-as-code (Terraform), and cloud data platforms (Snowflake or similar).
• Experience in regulated environments (banking, payments, or similar) with examiner-facing documentation and oversight.
• Experience selecting, integrating, and operating meaningful third-party platforms post-launch.
• Ability to communicate technical concepts clearly to executives, board members, and non-engineering stakeholders.

Responsibilities

• Set and drive the bank's systems technical direction across cloud infra, data platform, core banking configuration, CI/CD, networking, and third‑party integrations.
• Design, build, integrate, and operate the most critical, high-stakes components and lead incident response.
• Raise the bar for code and design reviews, and establish scalable patterns and standards for a small team.
• Ship AI-first capabilities and push the team to leverage AI in development, design review, and operations.
• Lead vendor evaluation, integration, and ongoing oversight across core, data, identity, observability, and card-processing stacks.
• Define integration boundaries with Affirm Inc to ensure seamless operation within the ecosystem while maintaining regulatory separation.
• Collaborate with Legal, Compliance, Risk, Finance, and Internal Audit to bake compliance into the product from day one.
• Own operational posture: reliability, observability, runbooks, incident response, and disaster recovery for standalone operability.
• Mentor engineers, assist hiring, and raise the overall bar as the team grows.

Skills

Software architecture

Cloud infrastructure

AI-enabled development

Strategic leadership

Banking/regulatory familiarity

Vendor management

Documentation

Communication

Tools

AWS

Terraform

Snowflake

Job description

Affirm is reinventing credit by building its own bank and seeks a Staff Software Engineer to anchor a small, AI-native team that runs the bank's core systems. You will set architectural direction, own the hardest problems end-to-end, and shape the integration boundary with Affirm Inc while maintaining regulatory separation.

You will lead design reviews, drive AI-enabled development, and partner with Legal, Compliance, and Risk to ensure compliance is built into the product from day one.