Staff Backend Engineer - Search & Discovery, Remote

Affirm; Chicago (IL); Remote; USD 204,000 - 290,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity

100% subsidized medical coverage

Dental and vision for you and dependes

Monthly health, wellness and tech stip

Job summary

Affirm is seeking an experienced backend engineer to design, evolve and scale core services in a remote-first environment. You will drive technical strategy for a year-long horizon, partner with product management, design and analytics, and define robust solutions with strong on-call readiness and code quality.

The role emphasizes ownership, collaboration, and delivering high-impact features. The position requires 8+ years of backend experience, knowledge of distributed systems, and proficiency

Qualifications

• 8+ years designing, developing and launching backend systems at scale using languages like Python or Kotlin.
• Extensive distributed systems experience with AWS, MySQL, Spark and Kubernetes.
• Experience building consumer experiences using UI frameworks like React.
• 2+ years of experience in search or related recommendation engines.
• Ability to write high-quality, well-documented code.
• Bachelor's degree or equivalent practical experience.

Responsibilities

• Set technical strategy for your team on a year-long time scale.
• Collaborate across teams in the product development lifecycle with product management, design & analytics.
• Act as a force-multiplier for your team through technical solution definitions and operational processes.
• Own your team’s operations and on-call readiness with monitoring, playbooks and policies.
• Set code review and design standards and advocate for them beyond your team.
• Develop talent by providing feedback and guidance, and leading by example.

Skills

Backend development

Python

Kotlin

AWS

MySQL

Spark

Kubernetes

React

Search engines

Education

Bachelor's degree or equivalent

Job description

Affirm is seeking an experienced backend engineer to design, evolve and scale core services in a remote-first environment. You will drive technical strategy for a year-long horizon, partner with product management, design and analytics, and define robust solutions with strong on-call readiness and code quality.

The role emphasizes ownership, collaboration, and delivering high-impact features. The position requires 8+ years of backend experience, knowledge of distributed systems, and proficiency