Senior Staff Software Engineer (Crypto, SV) - IC8+ - US - 2026

Socket.dev; Palo Alto (CA); Hybrid; USD 230,000 - 320,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity

Medical Insurance

Dental and Vision Insurance

Life Insurance and AD&D

Extended maternity and paternity leave

Nucleo learning platform

NuLanguage language learning

NuCare mental health program

401K

Saving Plans – HSA and FSA

Work-from-home Allowance

Relocation Assistance

Job summary

Nu in Palo Alto is seeking a senior technical leader to shape architecture and long-term direction of our global crypto platform. This hands-on IC role will lead cross-team initiatives and establish secure, reliable foundations for crypto products at scale.

You will work at the intersection of crypto protocols, distributed systems, money movement, security, and regulated financial products, mentor senior engineers, and influence without formal authority.

Qualifications

• Sustained record of operating as a senior technical leader across multiple teams.
• Deep production expertise in crypto infrastructure and products.
• Experience building large-scale distributed systems with security and reliability.
• Ability to translate strategy into shipped, adopted systems.
• Experience leading complex, ambiguous initiatives with cross-functional impact.
• Ability to influence without formal authority.

Responsibilities

• Define multi-year technical direction for Nu's crypto systems.
• Lead architecture of critical capabilities while remaining hands-on.
• Create shared platforms and reusable capabilities for teams.
• Establish standards for scalability, reliability and security.
• Translate constraints into durable system designs.
• Drive initiatives across teams and ensure adoption and outcomes.
• Provide leadership during risks and production events.
• Mentor staff-plus engineers and contribute to hiring.

Skills

Senior leadership

Crypto infrastructure

Distributed systems

Security & compliance

Mentoring engineers

Cross-functional collaboration

Job description

About Nu

Nu is the leading digital bank in Latin America, serving 135 million customers across Brazil, Mexico, and Colombia. The company has been leading an industry transformation by leveraging data and proprietary technology to develop innovative products and services. Guided by its mission to fight complexity and empower people, Nu caters to customers’ complete financial journey, promoting financial access and advancement with responsible lending and transparency. The company is powered by an efficient and scalable business model that combines low cost to serve with growing returns.Nu’s impact has been recognized in multiple awards, including Time 100 Most Influential Companies, Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies, and Forbes World’s Best Banks.Visit our Institutional Page

About the Role

Nu is looking for a senior technical leader to shape the architecture and long‑term technical direction of our global crypto platform. In this hands‑on individual‑contributor role, you will lead consequential cross‑team initiatives and establish secure, reliable foundations for crypto products at global scale.

You will work at the intersection of crypto protocols, distributed systems, money movement, security, and regulated financial products. You will identify high‑leverage problems, make difficult decisions amid ambiguity, and turn deep domain expertise into capabilities and standards that benefit multiple teams.

You will partner closely with product, security, risk, compliance, and engineering leadership while mentoring senior engineers and strengthening technical decision‑making across Nu. Success requires exceptional judgment and the ability to build alignment without formal authority.

You’ll be responsible for

• Define a multi-year technical direction for Nu’s crypto systems and connect it to company, product, and customer strategy.

• Lead the architecture of highly consequential, ambiguous, and security‑critical capabilities while remaining hands‑on in key technical decisions.

• Create shared platforms, reusable capabilities, and engineering mechanisms that allow multiple teams to build and operate crypto products safely at scale.

• Anticipate broad scalability, reliability, security, and operational challenges and establish standards that raise the technical bar across the organization.

• Translate product, business, security, risk, and regulatory constraints into coherent technical priorities and durable system designs.

• Drive complex initiatives across team and organizational boundaries, building alignment and ensuring adoption, execution quality, and measurable outcomes.

• Provide technical leadership through major risks and production events, turning lessons into lasting improvements to systems and operating practices.

• Mentor Staff‑plus engineers and engineering leaders, contribute to hiring and technical communities and strengthen Nu’s long‑term engineering capabilities.

We are looking for a person who has

Required

• A sustained record of operating as a senior technical leader in a complex engineering organization, with impact extending across multiple teams or domains.

• Deep production expertise in crypto infrastructure and products, with strength in areas such as blockchain integrations, DeFi, custody, signing or key management, wallets and asset movement, or smart contracts.

• A record of building or transforming large‑scale distributed systems, technical platforms, or financial infrastructure where security, correctness, and reliability are non‑negotiable.

• Demonstrated ability to set long‑term technical strategy and convert it into shipped systems, broad organizational adoption, and measurable operational or business improvement.

• Experience leading highly complex and ambiguous initiatives that require deep technical judgment, cross‑functional tradeoffs, and change across organizational boundaries.

• Ability to influence executives, engineering leaders, product leaders, security, risk, compliance, and other partners without relying on formal authority.

• A strong record of mentoring senior engineers and technical leaders and raising the quality of architecture and decision‑making around them.

• Exceptional communication skills and the ability to create clarity, alignment, and commitment in high‑stakes or rapidly changing environments.

Nice to have

• Experience establishing technical foundations across multiple blockchain networks or crypto product domains.

• Experience in regulated banking, fintech, payments, or institutional digital assets.

• Experience with security‑critical infrastructure, custody platforms, key‑management systems, or high‑integrity transaction processing.

• Experience shaping company‑wide engineering standards, technical communities, or shared platform strategy.

• Recognition as a technical reference in crypto, distributed systems, security, or financial infrastructure.

Location

Palo Alto, United States

Our Benefits

• Opportunity of earning equity at Nu

• Medical Insurance

• Dental and Vision Insurance

• Life Insurance and AD&D

• Extended maternity and paternity leaves

• Nucleo – Our learning platform of courses

• NuLanguage – Our language learning program

• NuCare – Our mental health and wellness assistance program

• 401K

• Saving Plans – Health Saving Account and Flexible Spending Account

• Work‑from‑home Allowance

• Relocation Assistance Package, if applicable

Work Model

Hybrid 2‑3 times/week: Our hybrid work model brings us to the office at least twice a week, on strategic days designed to maximize team connection and collaboration. For more details, visit https://building.nubank.com/nu-hybrid-work-model/

Explore how we build technology at Nubank:

building.nubank.com.br

youtube.com/@building.nubank

Our recruitment process may involve the use of artificial intelligence–enabled tools, such as automated interview transcription and analysis, to support the evaluation process. Artificial intelligence is not used to make final hiring decisions; all decisions are made by human reviewers.