Staff Software Engineer: AI-First Banking Platform

Affirm; Philadelphia (Philadelphia County); On-site; USD 204,000 - 290,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health coverage for dependents

Employee stock purchase plan

Remote-first with occasional office

Competitive vacation and holidays

Tech spending stipends

Job summary

Affirm is shaping a new bank infrastructure with a Staff Software Engineer who will anchor AI-native systems. You’ll lead architecture for cloud, data, and banking configuration while coordinating with senior leadership. The role emphasizes ownership beyond code, with a strong focus on regulation, compliance, and vendor oversight.

You will guide a small, high-impact team, drive technical strategy, and push AI-enabled workflows across critical banking surfaces in a remote-first environment.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of software engineering with senior technical ownership.
• Able to own ambiguous, high-stakes systems end-to-end from design to ops.
• Willing to leverage AI to improve engineering velocity and outcomes.
• Experience in regulated environments with examiner-facing documentation.

Responsibilities

• Set technical direction across bank systems, including cloud infra and data platform.
• Own the hardest problems end-to-end with well-defined architectures and runbooks.
• Mentor engineers, set code/design review standards, and elevate the team.
• Ship AI-first capabilities and push ai-assisted workflows as a multiplier.
• Lead vendor evaluation, integration, and ongoing operational ownership.
• Define integration boundaries with affirm inc and maintain charter separation.
• Partner with compliance and risk to ensure exam-ready systems.
• Maintain operational posture: reliability, observability, incident response.

Skills

System architecture

Cloud infrastructure (AWS)

Infra as code (Terraform)

Banking/regulated domain

Strong communication

AI tooling integration

Vendor management

Tools

Terraform

Snowflake

Job description

Affirm is shaping a new bank infrastructure with a Staff Software Engineer who will anchor AI-native systems. You’ll lead architecture for cloud, data, and banking configuration while coordinating with senior leadership. The role emphasizes ownership beyond code, with a strong focus on regulation, compliance, and vendor oversight.

You will guide a small, high-impact team, drive technical strategy, and push AI-enabled workflows across critical banking surfaces in a remote-first environment.