Staff Engineer

Zip Co; United States; Remote; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Remote-first role

Optional NYC office collaboration

Job summary

Zip Co is seeking a hands-on Staff Engineer to lead the architecture and evolution of a high-scale platform for real-time money movement and payment processing. You will drive cross-domain technical leadership, design reliable event-driven systems, and advance AI-enabled practices across engineering.

You will mentor senior engineers, shape strategic architecture, and partner with product leaders to balance rapid delivery with long-term platform health.

Qualifications

• Extensive experience designing and delivering distributed, cloud-native systems.
• Strong architectural judgment across service boundaries and event-driven environments.
• Experience leading high-impact technical work without relying solely on formal authority.
• Understanding of reliability and correctness for systems processing financial transactions.

Responsibilities

• Set technical direction for initiatives spanning multiple teams and platform domains.
• Design reliable, event-driven systems that preserve correctness across retries, duplicates, failures, and reconciliation scenarios.
• Guide major initiatives from ambiguous early concepts through production delivery.
• Establish reusable patterns for AI-assisted coding, testing, debugging, incident analysis, and developer productivity.
• Partner with engineering and product leaders on strategic architecture and delivery decisions.
• Mentor senior engineers and raise standards for reliability, scalability, performance, and developer experience.

Skills

Distributed systems

Architectural leadership

Cloud-native design

AI-assisted engineering

Mentoring

Technical leadership

Job description

Role overview

Lead the architecture and evolution of a high-scale platform responsible for real-time money movement and payment processing. This is a hands-on staff engineering role focused on cross-domain technical leadership, distributed systems, reliable financial workflows, and the practical adoption of AI across engineering.

Responsibilities

• Set technical direction for complex initiatives spanning multiple teams and platform domains.
• Design reliable, event-driven systems that preserve correctness across retries, duplicates, failures, and reconciliation scenarios.
• Guide major initiatives from ambiguous early concepts through production delivery.
• Establish reusable patterns for AI-assisted coding, testing, debugging, incident analysis, and developer productivity.
• Partner with engineering and product leaders on strategic architecture and delivery decisions.
• Mentor senior engineers and raise standards for reliability, scalability, performance, and developer experience.

Requirements

• Extensive experience designing and delivering distributed, cloud-native systems.
• Strong architectural judgment across service boundaries and event-driven environments.
• Experience leading high-impact technical work without relying solely on formal authority.
• Understanding of the reliability and correctness demands of systems that process financial transactions.
• Ability to balance rapid delivery with long-term platform health.
• Strong communication, collaboration, mentoring, and technical leadership skills.

Nice to have

• Experience scaling AI-enabled engineering practices across teams.
• Familiarity with domain-driven design, agile delivery, and test-driven development.

Benefits and work setup

• Remote-first position for engineers based in the United States.
• Optional collaboration from a New York City office.
• Inclusive workplace with a stated commitment to accessibility and equal opportunity.