Staff Backend Observability Engineer - Remote

Affirm, Inc.; Phoenix (AZ); Remote; USD 204,000 - 264,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health coverage

Stipends for tech setup

Flexible time off

ESPP stock purchase

Job summary

AFFIRM is seeking a Staff Software Engineer to lead Observability. You’ll own the telemetry pipeline architecture, design log sampling, and shape how observability integrates into agentic development.

You’ll mentor six engineers and partner with product and infrastructure teams while setting long-term technical strategy. You will spend most of your time hands-on and define roadmaps, ensuring code quality and operational excellence across the platform.

Qualifications

• 8+ years designing backend systems at scale.
• Distributed systems with high availability (AWS, MySQL, Flink, Kubernetes).
• Telemetry systems (metrics/logs/traces) using OpenTelemetry, Kafka, Terraform.

Responsibilities

• Own the telemetry pipeline architecture for 200+ TB/day, balancing reliability, performance and cost.
• Design log sampling strategies to reduce volume and cost without losing signal during incidents.
• Shape observability integration into agentic development for AI coding agents and code review.

Skills

Backend architecture

Telemetry systems design

Cross-functional collaboration

Mentoring engineers

Roadmap planning

Communication

Adaptability

Problem solving under ambiguity

Leadership

Strategic thinking

Education

Bachelor's degree or equivalent

Tools

AWS

MySQL

Flink

Kubernetes

OpenTelemetry

Kafka

Terraform

Job description

AFFIRM is seeking a Staff Software Engineer to lead Observability. You’ll own the telemetry pipeline architecture, design log sampling, and shape how observability integrates into agentic development.

You’ll mentor six engineers and partner with product and infrastructure teams while setting long-term technical strategy. You will spend most of your time hands-on and define roadmaps, ensuring code quality and operational excellence across the platform.