Staff Software Engineer, Backend – Payments Platform

Coinbase; Frankfort (KY); Hybrid; USD 218,000 - 257,000; Full time

Job summary

Coinbase is hiring a Staff Software Engineer for the Payments team within the Platform organization. You will own the architecture and technical direction of systems powering fiat on- and off-ramps for individual and institutional customers, processing billions in volume.

The role focuses on building and evolving scalable distributed systems, ensuring reliability, and partnering with Product, Risk, Compliance, and Operations to meet regulatory needs.

Qualifications

• 8 years of experience in software engineering with payments, financial infrastructure, or high-volume transactional platforms.
• Proven track record of architecting fault-tolerant, reliable distributed systems at scale with billions in transaction volume.
• Led platform-building efforts to create coherent, reusable services and APIs.
• Experience owning production reliability and leading high-severity incident response across multiple teams.
• Ability to influence technical direction across teams without direct authority.
• Experience using generative AI responsibly to improve workflows while maintaining human oversight.

Responsibilities

• Own the multi-year technical strategy and architecture for the Payments platform, defining the roadmap for scaling integrations and funds-flow systems across global markets.
• Build and evolve distributed systems that process high-volume payment traffic, with fault isolation and observable metrics.
• Drive engineering quality by establishing shared frameworks and coding standards across the Payments team.
• Partner with Product, Risk, Compliance, and Operations to translate business requirements into scalable technical solutions.
• Lead high-stakes scaling and reliability initiatives and drive improvements from incident postmortems.
• Mentor engineers through design reviews and architectural guidance to accelerate team growth.

Skills

Distributed systems

Technical leadership

Production reliability

AI governance

Cross-functional collaboration

High-volume payments

System architecture

Job description

Ready to do the most impactful work of your career? AtCoinbase, we are uncompromising on our mission to increase economic freedom. The bar is high, the environment is intense, and we like it that way. This isn’t a place for complacency, it’s a place to be pushed past your perceived limits. If you’re ready to build the future of finance alongside people who refuse to settle for “good enough,” you belong here. Coinbase is a remote-first, but not remote-only company. Expect to get together quarterly for intense in-person working sessions called “surges.”learn more about working at Coinbase.

We’re hiring a Staff Software Engineer to join the Payments team within the Platform organization. The Payments team builds and operates the infrastructure, workflows, and APIs that power fiat on- and off-ramps for individual and institutional customers, processing billions of dollars in transaction volume across a growing set of global markets. You’ll own the architecture and technical direction of these systems, ensuring every payment is reliable, scalable, and correct as Coinbase expands into new regions and payment methods.

What you’ll do:

• Own the multi-year technical strategy and architecture for the Payments platform, defining the roadmap for scaling integrations, routing, and funds-flow systems across global markets.

• Build and evolve distributed systems that process high-volume payment traffic, designing for fault isolation, graceful degradation, observability, and clear SLOs for Tier-0/Tier-1 services.

• Drive engineering quality by establishing paved roads, shared frameworks, and coding standards that elevate the technical bar across the Payments team and adjacent orgs.

• Partner cross-functionally with Product, Risk, Compliance, and Operations to translate ambiguous business requirements into well-scoped technical solutions that balance speed, safety, and regulatory needs.

• Lead high-stakes scaling and reliability initiatives, anticipating bottlenecks before they occur and driving systematic improvements from incident postmortems.

• Strengthen team capabilities through hands-on mentorship, design reviews, and architectural guidance that accelerate the growth of engineers across the team.

Required Skills and Experience:

• 8 years of experience in software engineering, including hands-on experience building payment systems, financial infrastructure, or high-volume transactional platforms.

• Demonstrated track record of architecting and delivering fault-tolerant, highly reliable distributed systems at scale, with experience processing billions of dollars in transaction volume.

• Led platform-building efforts that transformed fragmented services into coherent, reusable systems (e.g., shared frameworks, unified APIs, multi-tenant architectures).

• Proven experience owning production reliability, leading high-severity incident response, and driving systemic improvements across multiple teams or domains.

• History of influencing technical direction across teams and organizations without direct authority, including representing your area in org-level architecture and strategy forums.

• Utilizes generative AI responsibly, maintaining human oversight to deliver business-ready outputs and drive measurable improvements in workflow efficiency, cost, and quality.

Job # P77339

*Pay Transparency Notice:** *Base salary varies by location (see range below). Total compensation may also include equity and bonus eligibility, and benefits (medical, dental, vision, 401(k)).

Annual base salary range (excluding equity and bonus):

$218,025—$256,500 USD

• *Application Limit: *Candidates may submit a maximum of 3 applications within a 6-month period.

• *Equal Opportunity Employer: *Coinbase is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, protected veteran status, or genetic information. Applicants with criminal histories will be considered consistent with applicable federal, state, and local laws.

• *US Applicants: *View Employee Rights, Know Your Rights, and E-Verify Notice of Participation.

• *Accommodations: *If you are an individual with a disability who needs a reasonable accommodation, email us your request and contact info at accommodations[at]coinbase.com.Need screen reading technology? Click here to download a free compatible screen reader and view the tutorial.

• *Data Privacy & Arbitration: *By submitting your application, you agree to our Candidate Privacy Notice. US applicants: By submitting your application, you agree to Arbitration of Disputes.