Staff Software Engineer - Core Edge Processing

marqeta-inc; United States; Remote; USD 110,000 - 137,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health insurance options

Remote work stipend

Equity in company

Development stipend

Parental leave top-up

Job summary

Marqeta is seeking a staff-level software engineer to own the real-time routing and authorization of card transactions, with cryptographic infrastructure underpinning it. The role blends hands-on coding with technical leadership in a cloud-native, highly available environment.

You will mentor teams, influence system design, and drive reliability while shipping production code that directly affects transaction outcomes.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of hands-on production coding experience.
• Deep Java expertise with concurrency and performance.
• Experience designing and operating distributed systems in production.
• Regulated, cloud-native, high-availability environment experience.
• Payment processing, card networks, or related protocols experience.

Responsibilities

• Ship and refine production code across routing and processing stack.
• Lead reliability, throughput, and cost-efficiency initiatives in production.
• Shape system designs with engineering leadership and peers.
• Own complex, mission-critical codebases and raise engineering standards.
• Mentor engineers and guide technical direction at Staff level.

Skills

Java programming

Distributed systems

System design

Production coding

Kubernetes

AWS

Tools

Kubernetes

AWS

Job description

Role overview

Staff-level software engineer position on a team responsible for the systems that route and authorize transactions across card networks, including the cryptographic infrastructure beneath them. The work is hands‑on, production‑focused, and centers on real‑time, always‑on payment processing where latency and reliability directly determine transaction outcomes. The role combines deep individual contribution with technical leadership and mentorship across a regulated, cloud‑native, high‑availability environment.

Responsibilities

• Ship and refine production code across the routing and processing stack, where every millisecond and every line of code directly affects transaction success.
• Lead initiatives that improve platform reliability, throughput, and cost efficiency in production.
• Shape system design alongside engineering leadership and peer engineers, covering data model changes, failure and degradation strategies, and blast‑radius containment.
• Take ownership of complex, mission‑critical codebases and raise the engineering standard for the surrounding team.
• Mentor engineers and guide technical direction at the Staff level through design reviews and production feedback loops.

Requirements

• 8+ years of professional engineering experience with sustained, hands‑on production coding responsibility.
• Deep Java expertise, including strong fundamentals in concurrency, performance, and building reliable distributed systems at scale.
• Demonstrated ability to author system designs, defend them in review, and operate what you build in production.
• Comfort working in a regulated, cloud‑native, high‑availability environment.
• Practical experience in payment processing, card issuing, or network integration (for example JPOS, ISO 8583, or comparable protocols).

Nice to have

• Cryptography or key management experience, including HSMs, AWS Payment Cryptography, or KMS.
• Operating systems across multiple regions, including tested failover procedures.
• Hands‑on experience with Kubernetes and AWS.

Benefits and work setup

• Full‑time, remote‑friendly position based in Ontario or British Columbia, Canada, with a flexible remote work model.
• Listed base salary range of CAD $156,800 – $196,000, calibrated to working location, plus an annual bonus program tied to individual and company performance.
• Multiple health insurance options, flexible vacation time with additional floating holidays, and a retirement savings program with company contribution.
• Equity in a publicly‑traded company, monthly remote‑work stipend, and an annual development stipend.
• Family‑forming benefits and generous parental leave with base salary top‑up.