Staff Backend Observability Lead – Remote

Affirm, Inc.; Chicago (IL); Remote; USD 204,000 - 264,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Remote-first with flexible work

Health coverage for you and dependents

Stipends for tech setup

Generous time off

Stock purchase plan

Job summary

AFFIRM is seeking a Staff Software Engineer to lead Observability. You will own the telemetry pipeline architecture and drive cross-functional projects, mentoring six engineers while partnering with infrastructure and product teams.

You will design log sampling, shape how observability integrates into development, and set a year-long technical strategy to deliver business-impacting outcomes.

Qualifications

• 8+ years designing, developing and launching backend systems at scale.
• Experience with Python or Kotlin.
• Distributed systems using AWS, MySQL, Flink and Kubernetes.
• Built telemetry systems with OpenTelemetry, Kafka, Terraform.
• Knowledge of modern observability practices: wide events, sampling, SLOs.
• Driven adoption of a platform standard across engineering teams.

Responsibilities

• Own the architecture of AFFIRM’s telemetry pipeline for 200+ TB/day.
• Design log sampling to reduce volume and cost without losing signal.
• Shape observability integration in AI coding and code review processes.
• Set long-term technical strategy for the team and align with business goals.
• Collaborate with product, design and analytics for sustainable, risks-aware development.
• Advocate and implement high-quality, scalable technical solutions and processes.
• Own team operations, monitoring, incident response, and on-call readiness.
• Set coding and design standards and propagate them beyond the team.
• Mentor team members and guide career growth.

Skills

Python

Kotlin

AWS

MySQL

Flink

Kubernetes

OpenTelemetry

Kafka

Terraform

Communication

Education

Bachelor's degree or equivalent in a related field

Tools

OpenTelemetry

Kafka

Terraform

AWS

MySQL

Flink

Kubernetes

Job description

AFFIRM is seeking a Staff Software Engineer to lead Observability. You will own the telemetry pipeline architecture and drive cross-functional projects, mentoring six engineers while partnering with infrastructure and product teams.

You will design log sampling, shape how observability integrates into development, and set a year-long technical strategy to deliver business-impacting outcomes.