Staff Software Engineer, Backend (Trust and Safety)

Affirm; Baltimore (MD); Remote; USD 204,000 - 290,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health coverage

Stipends

Time off

ESPP

Job summary

Affirm is a remote-first company seeking a Staff Software Engineer for Trust and Safety Foundations. You will shape technical strategy, lead critical initiatives across systems, and drive reliability and quality through strong ownership.

You’ll mentor engineers, write high‑quality code in Python or Kotlin, collaborate with product, design and analytics, and help scale our backend services to support risk, compliance, and customer trust.

Qualifications

• 8+ years designing, developing and launching backend systems at scale.
• Experience with Python or Kotlin in production.
• Strong track record of building highly available distributed systems using AWS, MySQL, Spark, Kubernetes.

Responsibilities

• Set technical strategy for your team on a year-long horizon and align it with core, business-impacting projects.
• Collaborate across PM, design and analytics to ensure sustainability, risk awareness and clear trade-offs.
• Act as a force-multiplier by defining technical solutions and operational processes.

Skills

Backend design

Distributed systems

Python

Kotlin

AWS

MySQL

Spark

Kubernetes

Education

Bachelor's degree or equivalent

Job description

At Affi, 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.

About The Engineering Team

The Engineering team builds systems that power affirm’s mission. We take pride in our craft, building reliable, performant, and scalable solutions that touch every part of the business. Whether we’re enabling new ways to pay, ensuring our platforms can scale to the most demanding levels in the industry, or developing seamless servicing experiences, our focus is on solving complex problems through exceptional engineering.

About The Role

The Trust and Safety Foundations team within Checkout Engineering builds and operates foundational systems and data capabilities that support how affirm understands consumer risk and meets its credit reporting obligations. Our work sits at the intersection of data quality, system reliability, regulatory requirements, and risk, creating critical infrastructure that affirm and its partners depend on to operate accurately and at scale.

As a Staff Software Engineer on Trust and Safety Foundations, you will help shape the team’s technical strategy and lead complex, business‑critical initiatives across systems and stakeholders. You’ll turn ambiguous problems into clear technical approaches, guide projects from strategy through execution, and strengthen the reliability and sustainability of the systems we own. You’ll also act as a force multiplier by raising the bar for system design and engineering quality, sharing your expertise, and helping other engineers grow. This role requires strong technical judgment, deep ownership, and the ability to navigate complexity in a high‑impact domain.

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 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 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 base pay range (CA, WA, NY, NJ, CT) per year: 230,000 - 290,000

USA base pay range (all other U.S. states) per year: 204,000 - 264,000

Remote‑first with flexibility built in

Affirm is proud to be a remote‑first company. Most roles can be done from almost anywhere within the country of employment. Some positions may occasionally require in‑person work at an affirm office, and a few are office‑based due to the nature of the work. All new hires will be invited to attend an in‑person onboarding experience.

Benefits Designed For You

Our benefits reflect our commitment to care, transparency, and flexibility. Here are a few highlights:

• Health coverage at no cost: We cover 100% of premiums for employees and their dependents.
• Spending stipends: Monthly stipends support your tech setup, and the ability to choose health and wellness options that are right for you.
• Time off to recharge: Flexible time off and generous holiday calendars help you rest when you need to.
• Own a piece of what you build: Our employee stock purchase plan (ESPP) lets you buy affirm stock at a discount.

We’re committed to providing an inclusive interview process, including accommodations for candidates with disabilities. If you need support, we’re happy to help.

For positions based in San Francisco or Los Angeles: affirm considers qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records, as required by law.