Staff Engineer, Commerce Platform

Lever, Inc.; Seattle (WA); On-site; USD 182,000 - 260,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive compensation

401k match

Long-term incentive plan

Flexible PTO

Medical benefits

Commuter benefits

Dog-friendly office

Pet adoption assistance

Free catered lunches

Job summary

Rover is seeking a Senior Software Engineer for the Commerce Platform in the Greater Seattle area. You will own the transaction lifecycle, ensuring secure checkout, accurate payouts, and regulatory compliance at scale, while guiding cross-team initiatives and mentoring engineers.

Join a hybrid role with a focus on design, reliability, and collaboration with Finance, Accounting, and Compliance to deliver trustworthy financial systems.

Qualifications

• 8+ years in software development, system design, and architecture.
• Experience leading cross-functional initiatives and shaping technical roadmaps.
• Ability to tackle open-ended technical challenges across multi-system architectures.
• Experience using AI coding tools to increase velocity.
• Experience with large-scale, high-traffic marketplaces; payments domain preferred.
• Excellent written and verbal communication with senior stakeholders.
• Mentoring engineers and leading technical interviews.
• Aligned with Rover Core Values.

Responsibilities

• Build a deep understanding of money flows through Rover and identify risks and opportunities.
• Set the technical direction for the transaction lifecycle across all products.
• Tackle unscoped cross-team problems and translate them into actionable plans.
• Collaborate with Finance, Accounting, and Compliance on system design.
• Raise the bar for trustworthy systems via design and code reviews.
• Balance hands-on work with mentorship to elevate other engineers.
• Ensure accurate charges and payouts for stays and sitter payments.

Skills

Software architecture

System design

Python

Django

Relational databases

React/React Native

Cross-functional leadership

AI coding tools

Commerce/payments domain

Communication

Mentoring engineers

Technical interviewing

Core values

Tools

Stripe

PayPal

Job description

Who we are

Want to make an impact? Join our pack and come work (and play!) with us.

We believe everyone deserves the unconditional love of a pet—and at Rover, our mission is to make it easier to experience that love. Founded in 2011, the Rover app and website connect dog and cat parents with loving pet sitters and dog walkers in neighborhoods across the US, Canada, and Europe.
Headquartered in Seattle, Washington, we work closely with our teams in Barcelona and remote locations. We have a reputation as a great place to work and are proud to be recognized as a top workplace in our area by respected business publications. We're an agile, fast-growing company, and our leadership comes from some of the world's most respected tech companies.
At Rover, our furry coworkers are just as important as our human ones—and we wouldn't have it any other way. Along with making the joys of pet parenthood more accessible, we're committed to fostering a diverse, inclusive, and welcoming community of pet people—and that starts with our employees.

About the Commerce Platform

The Commerce Platform team is Rover's trusted commerce backbone, owning everything from the order lifecycle to the checkout and payout experience—making it effortless, secure, and reliable for anyone to transact on Rover while ensuring financial accuracy, auditability, and regulatory compliance at scale. Our team's responsibilities include:

• Delivering a convenient, secure checkout and payout experience. We own the integrations with our payment service providers (including Stripe and PayPal), manage KYC verification, ensure PCI compliance, and continually improve the platform by expanding payment offerings, optimizing checkout flows, and improving the bottom line through high-impact projects
• Owning the end-to-end transaction lifecycle. We maintain orders and line-item data, fees, credits, and promotions, and serve as the source of truth for what gets charged, credited, taxed, and paid out on the platform—including tax calculation and reporting across eligible jurisdictions
• Ensuring accurate, audit-ready financial records. We run the reconciliation and reporting pipelines that keep month-end close clean and accurate, partnering closely with Rover's Finance & Accounting and FP&A teams as Rover grows internationally and adds new service lines

*This is a hybrid position that has the minimum expectation to work out of our Downtown Seattle Office two days per week on Mondays and Thursdays. For this reason, candidates must be based in the Greater Seattle Area or willing to relocate.

Additionally, applicants must be currently authorized to work in the United States on a full-time basis, without the need for current or future employer sponsorship for an employment-based visa status.

What you’ll do

• Build a deep, working understanding of how money moves through Rover: orders, fees, credits, discounts, taxes, and payouts. Use those insights to catch risks and spot opportunities early
• Set the technical direction for Rover’s transaction lifecycle, from how a booking becomes a charge to how a sitter gets paid, that every other product team builds against
• Take on problems that arrive unscoped and cross team lines: a tax requirement in a new market, a new payment provider, a change to how Rover's fees work. Turn them into a plan others can align around
• Work directly with Finance, Accounting, and Compliance to translate accounting and regulatory requirements into good system design
• Raise the bar for how Rover builds financially trustworthy systems, through design review, code review, and patterns that teams outside Commerce Platform adopt
• Move fluidly between hands-on work and mentorship. Raise the technical bar for engineers beyond your own team, and know when to step back and let others lead
• Care that every owner is charged or refunded correctly for their stays and that their sitter gets paid the right amount on the right day.

Qualifications

• Deep technical background with 8+ years of experience in software development best practices, system design, and architecture, with the technical range to work effectively across a modern web/mobile stack (e.g., Python, Django, Relational Databases, React, React Native)
• Experience running cross-functional initiatives, influencing technical direction and roadmaps across teams, and building alignment across organizational boundaries
• Proven ability to navigate complex, open-ended technical challenges across multi-system architectures, using strong engineering judgment to establish strategic direction
• Experience leveraging AI and agentic coding tools to increase engineering velocity and raise the technical bar across engineering teams
• Experience with large-scale, high-traffic consumer marketplace platforms; commerce, payments, or other finance-critical domain experience preferred
• Excellent written and verbal communication, including with senior leadership, stakeholders, and external partners
• Track record mentoring engineers and leading technical interviewing efforts, including helping shape what the team looks for in candidates
• Aligned with Rover Core Values

Benefits of working at Rover

• Competitive compensation
• 401k match
• Long-term incentive plan with a company performance-based cash payout
• Flexible PTO
• Competitive benefits package, including medical, dental, and vision insurance
• Commuter benefits
• Bring your dog to work (and unlimited puppy time)
• Pet benefits, including $1000 toward adopting your first dog or cat
• Stocked fridges, coffee, soda, and lots of treats (for humans and dogs), and free catered lunches monthly
• Regular team activities performed in-person and virtually

Compensation

In the greater Seattle area, the first-year salary range is $182,290–$260,000. Additionally, Rover offers benefits to full-time employees.

Cash compensation for this role will depend on the candidate's experience, qualifications, skills, and abilities as demonstrated during the interview and hiring process.