Staff Backend Engineer (Payments and Billing)

Scribd, Inc.; Chicago (IL); On-site; USD 150,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

Scribd, Inc. is seeking a payments architect to lead the technical design and implementation of our global billing systems.

You will own the end‑to‑end lifecycle of subscription payments, work with providers like Stripe/Adyen/Braintree, and ensure security and PCI compliance across currencies and regions. You will drive agentic engineering using AI to improve speed and reliability, build shared AI capabilities for payments, and define guardrails for AI‑assisted changes in PCI scope, maintaining

Responsibilities

• Lead the technical architecture and implementation of Scribd's payments and billing systems, the backbone of our subscription business.
• Design, build, and operate backend services that power subscription payments at global scale.
• Own billing lifecycle, global payments, invoicing, reconciliation, and financial reliability, integrating with multiple providers (Stripe, Adyen, Braintree) and supporting international currencies and local methods.
• Ensure compliance and security of financial systems through PCI DSS, tokenization, encryption, and secure data handling.
• Lead agentic engineering on the team: use AI agents across design, implementation, testing, debugging, and operations, and help the team adopt workflows that make us measurably faster without lowering the bar on correctness or security.
• Build shared AI leverage for payments, such as agent skills for alert triage, incident investigation, and anomaly detection, and runbooks, documentation, and context that agents can use reliably. Contribute these to Scribd's shared skills marketplace rather than building one‑off tools.
• Define guardrails for AI‑assisted changes in PCI scope: human review of every change, keeping cardholder and sensitive data out of prompts, logs, and unapproved tools, and clear testing and verification standards for AI‑generated code that touches money movement.

Job description

Scribd, Inc. is on a mission to advance human understanding. Our four products — Scribd®, Slideshare®, Everand™, and Fable — help billions of people across the globe move beyond access and into insight, application, and expertise.

Culture at Scribd, Inc.

We support a culture where our employees can be real and be bold; where we debate and commit as we embrace plot twists; and where every employee is empowered to take action as we prioritize the customer.

We believe the best work happens when individual flexibility is balanced with meaningful community connection. Scribd Flex empowers employees to choose the workstyle and location that support their best performance, while committing to intentional in-person moments that strengthen collaboration and culture. Occasional in-person attendance is required for all Scribd, Inc. employees, regardless of location.

So what are we looking for in new team members? At Scribd, Inc., we hire for “GRIT.” Traditionally defined as the intersection of passion and perseverance toward long‑term goals, GRIT reflects the mindset we expect from every employee. For us, it also serves as a practical framework for how we work: setting and achieving Goals, delivering Results within your role, contributing Innovative ideas and solutions, and strengthening the broader Team through collaboration and attitude.

This posting reflects an approved, open position within the organization.

About The Team

The Payments & Billing team at Scribd powers our subscription revenue engine by delivering the systems that manage billing lifecycles, global payment processing, and financial reliability across Scribd, Everand, Slideshare, and Fable. Our focus areas include payment processing at scale, invoicing, reconciliation, fraud prevention, compliance, and support for international currencies and payment methods. We partner closely with Product, Finance, Risk, and Platform Engineering to ensure that millions of readers worldwide can reliably access our services every day.

We're an agentic engineering team. AI agents (Claude Code, shared agent skills, and integrations with tools like Datadog, Sentry, and Stripe) are part of how we design, build, test, triage, and operate every day. Because our systems move money and sit in PCI scope, we hold AI‑generated work to the same human‑review, correctness, and security bar as anything else we ship.

What You'll Do

• Lead the technical architecture and implementation of Scribd's payments and billing systems, the backbone of our subscription business.
• Design, build, and operate backend services that power subscription payments at global scale.
• Own billing lifecycle, global payments, invoicing, reconciliation, and financial reliability, integrating with multiple providers (Stripe, Adyen, Braintree) and supporting international currencies and local methods.
• Ensure compliance and security of financial systems through PCI DSS, tokenization, encryption, and secure data handling.
• Lead agentic engineering on the team: use AI agents across design, implementation, testing, debugging, and operations, and help the team adopt workflows that make us measurably faster without lowering the bar on correctness or security.
• Build shared AI leverage for payments, such as agent skills for alert triage, incident investigation, and anomaly detection, and runbooks, documentation, and context that agents can use reliably. Contribute these to Scribd's shared skills marketplace rather than building one‑off tools.
• Define guardrails for AI‑assisted changes in PCI scope: human review of every change, keeping cardholder and sensitive data out of prompts, logs, and unapproved tools, and clear testing and verification standards for AI‑generated code that touches money movement.
• Foster a culture of