Senior Staff Software Engineer, Backend (Identity Engineering)

Affirm; San Diego (CA); Remote; USD 260,000 - 310,000; Full time

Job summary

An established industry player is seeking a Senior Staff Software Engineer to lead Identity Engineering initiatives. This role involves defining technical strategies, architecting scalable services, and mentoring engineers to foster innovation. You'll collaborate with cross-functional teams to ensure high availability and low latency in financial products. Join a forward-thinking company that prioritizes honest financial solutions and offers a remote-first work environment with competitive benefits and a transparent pay structure. If you're passionate about technology and making a difference, this opportunity is perfect for you.

Benefits

100% subsidized medical coverage

Flexible Spending Wallets

Competitive vacation and holiday schedules

Employee stock purchase plan

Qualifications

• Proven experience delivering multi-year, high-impact projects.
• Strong system design and software engineering skills.

Responsibilities

• Define multi-year technical strategy and deliver it through implementation.
• Architect and build next-generation Identity services.

Skills

System Design

Software Engineering

Distributed Systems

Cross-functional Collaboration

Kotlin Development

Education

Bachelor's Degree in Related Field

Job description

Senior Staff Software Engineer, Backend (Identity Engineering)

Join to apply for the Senior Staff Software Engineer, Backend (Identity Engineering) role at Affirm

Senior Staff Software Engineer, Backend (Identity Engineering)

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Join to apply for the Senior Staff Software Engineer, Backend (Identity Engineering) role at Affirm

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.

We are looking for a Senior Staff Software Engineer to take on a key role in Identity Engineering to define the technical direction and foster innovation across the engineering organization. You’ll work closely with engineering leaders, cross-functional teams, and stakeholders to create solutions that are scalable, reliable, and high-performing. You'll help shape best practices, guide architectural choices, and drive the successful delivery of critical initiatives. This role requires a high level of technical ability, leadership skills, strong cross-functional communication, and a creative mindset.

Identity Engineering owns the systems responsible for onboarding all consumers and managing their authentication and verification journeys across Affirm’s product surfaces. In this role, you will need to gain a deep understanding of the business, product and engineering context, and utilize that context to define the requirements, vision, and roadmap of the Identity area. You will lead the team to influence and align with business stakeholders and engineering partners, and deliver the vision over multiple years in incremental milestones.

What You'll Do

• Define the multi-year, multi-team technical strategy and deliver it through direct implementation and broad technical leadership
• Architect and build the next-generation Identity services, ensuring high availability and low latency to support Affirm’s financial products.
• Influence and align with cross-functional leaders across the organization, guided by deep domain context and engineering expertise
• Mentor engineers and advocate for engineering excellence, influencing best practices across teams
• Navigate ambiguity, bringing clarity to complex engineering, product, and business discussions
  
  

What We Look For

• Proven experience delivering multi-year, high-impact projects with broad cross-functional collaboration
• Strong system design and software engineering skills, with the ability to synthesize complex technical and business requirements
• A strong understanding of distributed systems and how architectural decisions affect performance and maintainability.
• Excellent written and verbal communication, especially in asynchronous formats (RFCs, design docs, project plans)
• Passion for working with cross-functional teams including Product, Analytics, and Business teams
• Kotlin development experience is a plus
• Excited about Affirm’s mission to deliver honest financial products
• This position requires either equivalent practical experience or a Bachelor’s degree in a related field.
  
  

Base Pay Grade - R

Equity Grade - 15

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: $260,000 - $310,000

USA base pay range (all other U.S. states) per year: $232,000 - $282,000

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.

By clicking "Submit Application," you acknowledge that you have read Affirm's Global Candidate Privacy Notice and hereby freely and unambiguously give informed consent to the collection, processing, use, and storage of your personal information as described therein.

Seniority level

• Seniority level

  Mid-Senior level

Employment type

• Employment type

  Full-time

Job function

• Job function

  Engineering and Information Technology

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