Staff Software Engineer, Backend (Search)

Affirm; Phoenix (AZ); Remote; USD 204,000 - 290,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity rewards

Health & tech stipends

Subsidized medical, dental, vision

Job summary

Affirm is building a new team to own search, recommendations, and discovery experiences. You will set the technical strategy for your team, collaborating with product, design and analytics to ensure scalable, reliable systems and strong user experiences.

You will own operations, drive code quality, and mentor team members. This remote-friendly role embraces a remote-first culture with a focus on delivering impactful features across the Ad/Marketplace platforms.

Qualifications

• 8+ years designing backend systems at scale using Python or Kotlin.
• Experience building highly available distributed systems with AWS, MySQL, Spark and Kubernetes.
• Experience developing consumer experiences with React.
• 2+ years in search or related recommendation engines.
• Ability to write high-quality code and communicate across teams.
• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent in a related field.

Responsibilities

• Set technical strategy for your team on a year-long horizon.
• Collaborate with product management, design & analytics across the lifecycle.
• Define and advocate technical solutions and operational processes.
• Own team operations, monitoring, playbooks, testing and on-call readiness.
• Set code review and design standards and propagate them beyond the team.
• Develop talent by giving feedback and mentoring.

Skills

Backend design

Python

Kotlin

Distributed systems

React

Communication

Education

Bachelor’s degree or equivalent

Tools

AWS

MySQL

Spark

Kubernetes

React

Job description

At Affim, we exist for the moments that matter—giving people a clear, predictable way to pay over time, with no hidden fees, no surprises, and no tradeoffs on what matters most.

As we build Affim's advertising platform and evolve Marketplace into a best in class shopping destination, the ability to route and discover is one of the greatest levers for consumer experiences. Search is one of the highest impact surfaces, and we are building a new team that will own not just the recommendations and search experiences, but also explore opportunities to improve customer experience, monetization, and merchant value. This team will help make Affim the definitive destination consumers turn to for discovery, understanding, comparing, and shopping through Affim, and will also lay the foundation for an agentic platform.

What You'll Do

• You will be responsible for setting technical strategy for your team on a year-long time scale, and help your team tie it together with critical, business-impacting projects.
• You will collaborate across teams in the product development lifecycle by collaborating with product management, design & analytics to ensure technical sustainability, risks and trade-offs are well understood and managed.
• You will act as a force-multiplier for your team through your definition and advocacy of technical solutions and operational processes.
• You take ownership of your team’s operations and availability by ensuring you have the right monitoring, triage rotations, playbooks, policies, testing and alerting in place to support “keep the lights on” & on-call efforts.
• You will foster a culture of quality and ownership on your team by setting code review and design standards for your team, and advocating for them beyond your team through your writing and tech talks.
• You will help develop talent on your team by providing feedback and guidance, and leading by example.

What We Look For

• You have 8+ years of experience designing, developing and launching backend systems at scale using languages like Python or Kotlin.
• You have an extensive track record of developing highly available distributed systems using technologies like AWS, MySQL, Spark and Kubernetes.
• You have experience developing consumer experiences using UI frameworks like React
• You have 2+ years of experience working in search or related recommendation engines
• You have experience delivering major features, system components or deprecating existing functionality in a system through the definition of a technical and execution plan. You write high quality code that is easily understood and used by others.
• You thrive in ambiguity, and are comfortable moving from low level language idioms all the way to the architecture of large systems to understand how they work.
• Your growth and impact trajectory demonstrates that you have mastered gathering and iterating on feedback from your engineering and cross-functional peers.
• You have strong verbal and written communication skills that support effective collaboration with our global engineering team.
• This position requires either equivalent practical experience or a Bachelor’s degree in a related field.

Base Pay Grade - P

Equity Grade - 13

Employees new to affirm typically come in at the start of the pay range. affirm focuses on providing a simple and transparent pay structure which is based on a variety of factors, including location, experience and job-related skills.

Base pay is part of a total compensation package that may include equity rewards, monthly stipends for health, wellness and tech spending, and benefits (including 100% subsidized medical coverage, dental and vision for you and your dependents.)

USA Pacific base pay range (CA, WA, NY, NJ, CT): $230,000 - $290,000

USA Sapphire base pay range (all other U.S. states): $204,00 - $264,000

Remote-first with flexibility built in

Affirm is proud to be a remote-first company. Most roles can be done from