Staff Software Engineer (Crypto, SV) - US - IC7 - 2026

Socket.dev; Palo Alto (CA); Hybrid; USD 220,000 - 320,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity opportunity

Medical Insurance

Dental and Vision Insurance

Life Insurance and AD&D

Relocation Assistance

Job summary

Nu is seeking a Staff Software Engineer to define and guide backend systems that connect its products to blockchain networks. You will own architecture for onchain data, signing and custody boundaries, and asset movement, while partnering with product, security, and compliance teams to ensure security and reliability at scale.

You will mentor senior engineers, drive standards for reliability and observability, and lead critical design reviews and post-incident improvements across teams.

Qualifications

• Track record of staff-level impact designing and operating critical backend/platform systems used by multiple teams.
• Deep experience with distributed systems at scale, including transaction processing, eventual consistency, failure handling, high availability, and production operations.
• Production ownership of regulated or high-stakes financial movement, blockchain integrations, or adjacent money-moving infrastructure.
• Meaningful production experience in DeFi, custody, key management or signing flows, asset movement between wallets/entities, or smart-contract integrations.
• Experience designing security-sensitive systems using threat modeling, trust boundaries, defensive architecture, and rigorous review processes.
• Ability to define shared-platform architecture and drive adoption across multiple engineering teams.
• Experience leading complex production incidents and improving systems and operating practices afterward.
• Strong influence, communication, and mentorship skills to align teams without direct authority

Responsibilities

• Define the technical strategy and architecture for backend systems that connect Nu products to blockchain networks.
• Design and operate shared capabilities for onchain data, transaction execution, signing and custody boundaries, asset movement between wallets and entities, and smart-contract integrations.
• Establish secure transaction lifecycles, trust boundaries, threat models, failure handling, and defensive controls for high-stakes crypto infrastructure.
• Create APIs and platform abstractions that allow product teams to use blockchain capabilities without reproducing protocol complexity or weakening controls.
• Drive multi-team standards for reliability, observability, data integrity, auditability, testing, disaster recovery, and production readiness.
• Lead critical design reviews, major-incident response, root-cause analysis, and durable follow-up work across team boundaries.
• Partner with security, compliance, and product leaders to translate technical and regulatory constraints into scalable system designs.
• Mentor senior engineers and raise the area-wide bar for architecture, technical decision-making, and operational ownership.

Skills

Staff-level impact

Distributed systems

Production ownership

DeFi/custody/signing

Security-focused design

Platform architecture

Incident response

Mentorship influence

Job description

About Nu

Nu is the leading digital bank in Latin America, serving 135 million customers across Brazil, Mexico, and Colombia. The company has been leading an industry transformation by leveraging data and proprietary technology to develop innovative products and services. Guided by its mission to fight complexity and empower people, Nu caters to customers’ complete financial journey, promoting financial access and advancement with responsible lending and transparency. The company is powered by an efficient and scalable business model that combines low cost to serve with growing returns. Nu’s impact has been recognized in multiple awards, including Time 100 Most Influential Companies, Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies, and Forbes World’s Best Banks. Visit our Institutional Page

About the Role

Nu is building the backend and platform foundations that connect its products to blockchain networks. As a Staff Software Engineer, you will set technical direction for capabilities such as onchain data, transaction construction and execution, signing and custody integrations, asset movement between wallets and entities, smart-contract integrations, and the infrastructure required to operate these systems securely at global scale.

Your scope will span shared capabilities used by multiple product teams. You will own critical architecture, lead multi-quarter technical decisions, and establish standards for security, reliability, data integrity, and operational readiness across team boundaries. Distributed-systems depth and production ownership are essential; meaningful experience in one or more relevant crypto domains matters more than checking every box.

You will partner closely with product, security, compliance, and engineering teams, lead the response to major technical risks and production incidents, and mentor senior engineers. Success means improving not only the systems you directly build, but how the broader crypto engineering area designs and operates critical infrastructure.

You'll be responsible for

• Define the technical strategy and architecture for backend systems that connect Nubank products to blockchain networks.

• Design and operate shared capabilities for onchain data, transaction execution, signing and custody boundaries, asset movement between wallets and entities, and smart-contract integrations.

• Establish secure transaction lifecycles, trust boundaries, threat models, failure handling, and defensive controls for high-stakes crypto infrastructure.

• Create APIs and platform abstractions that allow product teams to use blockchain capabilities without reproducing protocol complexity or weakening controls.

• Drive multi-team standards for reliability, observability, data integrity, auditability, testing, disaster recovery, and production readiness.

• Lead critical design reviews, major-incident response, root-cause analysis, and durable follow-up work across team boundaries.

• Partner with security, compliance, and product leaders to translate technical and regulatory constraints into scalable system designs.

• Mentor senior engineers and raise the area-wide bar for architecture, technical decision-making, and operational ownership.

We are looking for a person who has

Required

• A track record of Staff-level impact designing and operating critical backend or platform systems used by multiple teams.

• Deep experience with distributed systems at scale, including transaction processing, eventual consistency, failure handling, high availability, and production operations.

• Production ownership of regulated or high-stakes financial movement, blockchain integrations, or adjacent money-moving infrastructure.

• Meaningful production experience in at least one of the following: DeFi, custody, key management or signing flows, asset movement between wallets and entities, or smart-contract integrations.

• Experience designing security-sensitive systems using threat modeling, explicit trust boundaries, defensive architecture, and rigorous review processes.

• Demonstrated ability to define shared-platform architecture and drive adoption across multiple engineering teams.

• Experience leading complex production incidents and improving systems and operating practices afterward.

• Strong influence, communication, and mentorship skills, including the ability to align teams without relying on reporting authority.

Nice to have

• Experience integrating with multiple blockchain networks or protocol families.

• Experience with custodial wallets, settlement, on/off-chain movement, on/off ramps, node operations, or blockchain data systems.

• Familiarity with HSMs, secure enclaves, or hardware-backed key-management systems.

• Experience in regulated fintech, banking, payments, or institutional digital-asset infrastructure.

• Experience reviewing smart-contract security or integrating with DeFi protocols in production.

Location

Palo Alto, United States

Our Benefits

• Opportunity of earning equity at Nu

• Medical Insurance

• Dental and Vision Insurance

• Life Insurance and AD&D

• Extended maternity and paternity leaves

• Nucleo – Our learning platform of courses

• NuLanguage – Our language learning program

• NuCare – Our mental health and wellness assistance program

• 401K

• Saving Plans – Health Saving Account and Flexible Spending Account

• Work-from-home Allowance

• Relocation Assistance Package, if applicable

Work Model

Hybrid 2-3 times/week: Our hybrid work model brings us to the office at least twice a week, on strategic days designed to maximize team connection and collaboration. For more details, visit https://building.nubank.com/nu-hybrid-work-model/

Explore how we build technology at Nubank:

building.nubank.com.br

youtube.com/@building.nubank

Our recruitment process may involve the use of artificial intelligence–enabled tools, such as automated interview transcription and analysis, to support the evaluation process. Artificial intelligence is not used to make final hiring decisions; all decisions are made by human reviewers.