Staff Backend Engineer, Discovery & Search (Remote)

Affirm; Denver (CO); On-site; USD 204,000 - 290,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

100% subsidized medical coverage

Remote-first company

Stock purchase plan (ESPP)

Job summary

Affirm is building a remote-first engineering team focused on discovery, search, and shopping experiences. You will set technical direction for backend systems, collaborate across product and data teams, and drive scalable, reliable services that power buy-now, pay-later features.

You will contribute to high-availability architectures using AWS, Kubernetes and Spark, while delivering features and improvements across consumer experiences and search capabilities.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of experience designing, developing and launching backend systems at scale using languages like Python or Kotlin.
• Extensive track record of developing highly available distributed systems using AWS, MySQL, Spark and Kubernetes.
• Experience developing consumer experiences using UI frameworks like React.
• 2+ years of experience in search or related recommendation engines.
• Ability to deliver major features and components with a clear technical plan and high-quality code.
• Comfort with moving from low level language details to large system architecture.
• Growth trajectory showing feedback-driven iteration with peers.
• Strong written and verbal communication for collaboration across a global team.
• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent practical experience required.

Responsibilities

• Set technical strategy for the team on a year-long horizon and align with business goals.
• Collaborate across product, design and analytics to ensure sustainability, risks, and trade-offs are understood.
• Act as a force-multiplier by defining technical solutions and operational processes.
• Own team operations and on-call readiness with monitoring, playbooks and testing in place.
• Foster a culture of quality and ownership through code reviews and design standards.
• Develop talent by giving feedback and mentoring and leading by example.

Skills

Python

Kotlin

Distributed systems

AWS

MySQL

Spark

Kubernetes

React

Communication

Education

Bachelor's degree or equivalent practical experience

Tools

React

Docker

Kubernetes

Spark

Job description

Affirm is building a remote-first engineering team focused on discovery, search, and shopping experiences. You will set technical direction for backend systems, collaborate across product and data teams, and drive scalable, reliable services that power buy-now, pay-later features.

You will contribute to high-availability architectures using AWS, Kubernetes and Spark, while delivering features and improvements across consumer experiences and search capabilities.