Staff Backend Engineer, Search - Remote

Affirm, Inc.; Northern (KY); Hybrid; USD 204,000 - 290,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health coverage and dependents

Monthly tech stipends

Generous time off

Employee stock purchase plan

Job summary

Affirm is seeking a Staff Software Engineer, Backend (Search) to shape technical strategy and deliver scalable backend systems across search and recommendations. This remote role collaborates with product, design, analytics, and other engineering teams to ensure reliability, performance, and a great user experience.

You will lead by example, set standards, and help grow the team. 8+ years of backend experience and deep knowledge of AWS, MySQL, Spark, and Kubernetes are required.

Qualifications

• 8+ years in backend design, development and launch at scale.
• Distributed systems with AWS, MySQL, Spark and Kubernetes.
• Experience delivering consumer experiences with React.
• 2+ years in search or recommendation engines.
• A strong execution plan and high‑quality code.

Responsibilities

• Set technical strategy for the team on a yearly horizon.
• Collaborate across product, design and analytics for sustainable solutions.
• Act as a force-multiplier by defining technical solutions and processes.
• Own operations, monitoring, on-call, and incident playbooks.
• Establish code review and design standards beyond the team.
• Mentor teammates and lead by example.

Skills

Backend design

Distributed systems

Python/Kotlin

AWS

MySQL

Spark

Kubernetes

React

Search engines

Technical leadership

Education

Bachelor’s degree or equivalent

Tools

React

Spark

MySQL

Kubernetes

AWS

Job description

Affirm is seeking a Staff Software Engineer, Backend (Search) to shape technical strategy and deliver scalable backend systems across search and recommendations. This remote role collaborates with product, design, analytics, and other engineering teams to ensure reliability, performance, and a great user experience.

You will lead by example, set standards, and help grow the team. 8+ years of backend experience and deep knowledge of AWS, MySQL, Spark, and Kubernetes are required.