Staff Software Engineer, Backend (Trust and Safety)

Affirm, Inc.; Northern (KY); Hybrid; USD 204,000 - 264,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health coverage for dependents

Stipends for tech setup

Flexible time off

Employee stock purchase plan

Job summary

Affirm, Inc. is seeking a Staff Software Engineer for Backend in the Trust and Safety Foundations team. You will shape technical strategy, own complex initiatives, and drive reliability and scale across critical systems.

You will mentor engineers, define standards, and collaborate across product, design, and analytics to deliver high-impact features, while navigating ambiguity in a fast-growing, remote-first environment.

Qualifications

• 8+ years designing backend systems at scale.
• Experience with AWS, MySQL, Spark and Kubernetes.
• Delivers major features with a clear technical and execution plan.
• Comfortable navigating ambiguity and large system architectures.

Responsibilities

• Set technical strategy for the team on a year-long horizon.
• Collaborate with product management, design and analytics on sustainability and risk.
• Act as a force-multiplier by defining solutions and processes.
• Own operations, monitoring, playbooks and on-call readiness.
• Establish code and design standards and promote them across teams.
• Mentor teammates and lead by example.

Skills

Backend design

Python/Kotlin

Distributed systems

Leadership

Education

Bachelor's degree or equivalent

Tools

AWS

MySQL

Spark

Kubernetes

Job description

Staff Software Engineer, Backend (Trust and Safety)

Remote US

At affirm, 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.

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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 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 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 inAffirm 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 youOur 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.

Demographic Survey Statement (US-based roles)

Affirm is dedicated to building an inclusive culture where affirmers belong and have an equal opportunity to thrive.

To help us assess our outreach efforts, we invite candidates to voluntarily share information through a short demographic survey. This information is:

• Completely optional
• Anonymized and stored in aggregate
• Not accessible to recruiters or hiring managers at the individual level
• Never used in any hiring decision

Your decision to provide or withhold this information will not impact your candidacy in any way.

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Voluntary Self-Identification

For government reporting purposes, we ask candidates to respond to the below self-identification survey.Completion of the form is entirely voluntary. Whatever your decision, it will not be considered in the hiringprocess or thereafter. Any information that you do provide will be recorded and maintained in aconfidential file.

As set forth in affirm’s Equal Employment Opportunity policy,we do not discriminate on the basis of any protected group status under any applicable law.

If you believe you belong to any of the categories of protected veterans listed below, please indicate by making the appropriate selection.As a government contractor subject to the Vietnam Era Veterans Readjustment Assistance Act (VEVRAA), we request this information in order to measurethe effectiveness of the outreach and positive recruitment efforts we undertake pursuing to VEVRAA. Classification of protected categoriesis as follows:

A "disabled veteran" is one of the following: a veteran of the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service who is entitled to compensation (or who but for the receipt of military retired pay would be entitled to compensation) under laws administered by the Secretary of Veterans Affairs; or a person who was discharged or released from active duty because of a service‑connected disability.

A "recently separated veteran" means any veteran during the three‑year period beginning on the date of such veteran's discharge or release from active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval, or air service.

An "active duty wartime or campaign badge veteran" means a veteran who served on active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service during a war, or in a campaign or expedition for which a campaign badge has been authorized under the laws administered by the Department of Defense.

An "Armed forces service medal veteran" means a veteran who, while serving on active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service, participated in a United States military operation for which an Armed Forces service medal was awarded pursuant to Executive Order 12985.