Staff Software Engineer - Fraud

Mercury; Portland (OR); Remote; USD 239,000 - 298,800; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity (stock options)

Competitive salary

Comprehensive benefits package

Job summary

A leading fintech company is seeking a Staff Software Engineer in Portland to lead the development of backend systems for fraud prevention and decision-making. The ideal candidate has 7-10 years of software development experience, thrives in ambiguous situations, and is passionate about building reliable products. You'll collaborate with cross-functional teams to deliver large projects while mentoring fellow engineers. The role offers competitive compensation including salary, equity, and benefits packages.

Qualifications

• 7-10+ years of experience in software development, particularly backend.
• Experience as a technical lead with architectural decision-making.
• Ability to navigate ambiguous ownership and drive discussions.

Responsibilities

• Lead architecture and implementation for fraud prevention systems.
• Own delivery of cross-functional projects while making strategic tradeoffs.
• Design low-latency backend systems for real-time scoring.

Skills

Backend development

Haskell knowledge or willingness to learn

Mentorship

Technical leadership

Product mindset

Empathy in discussions

Job description

Every new business that applies to Mercury is like a new star appearing in the night sky. On its own, it’s a single point of light. But when we look closer, patterns emerge—data trails from partners, filings, founders, and financial histories—all connecting to form a larger constellation. That’s what our Risk product engineering teams do at Mercury. We guide thousands of business applications through our systems—each one unique, each one needing a smooth and trustworthy landing. The challenge: keep everything moving fast without compromising safety. Every day, our work helps founders open their first account, launch their next idea, and accelerate their growth like rocketships. Our mission is to build the intelligent, automated systems and operational tools that make this possible—where machine learning, AI, and human judgment work seamlessly together to power the next generation of business banking. We use intelligence to detect risks earlier, make real‑time decisions with confidence, and enable instant, delightful account approvals that keep pace with the builders we serve. When we do it right, the result is quiet brilliance: onboarding that feels effortless, even though it’s powered by galaxies of data, precision, and care. We’re looking for a Staff Software Engineer to contribute with building the systems and tools that make it all happen—from application approvals to ongoing and enhanced due diligence—ensuring every business that joins Mercury is both safe and their experience is delightful.

Responsibilities

• Lead the architecture, implementation, and long‑term roadmap for core systems which support multiple fraud prevention use cases.
• Own the end‑to‑end delivery of large cross‑function projects, translating ambiguous high impact problems into strategy and execution, make pragmatic tradeoffs, and drive teams to measurable outcomes.
• Design, build, and operate highly available, low‑latency, backend systems that enable real‑time scoring and decisioning for fraud prevention.
• Partner with Data Science and ML teams to productionize models, build reliable ML data pipelines, and enable real‑time model serving.
• Establish and elevate department level best practices, review designs, drive engineering quality, and act as a trusted advisor on architectural tradeoffs.
• Mentor and grow engineers, documenting learnings and sharing technical direction through writing, 1:1s, and team meetings.
• Navigate and influence multiple stakeholders, help align teams, communicate tradeoffs to technical and non‑technical partners, and independently resolve cross team issues.

Ideal Candidate

• Has 7‑10+ years of software development experience, with a strong focus on the backend, and either a knowledge of or excitement to learn Haskell.
• Has been an experienced technical lead making architectural decisions in the past and seen the impact of those decisions over time.
• Is passionately product‑minded and has experience building and shipping new products balancing reliability and velocity.
• Is someone comfortable driving discussions in areas with ambiguous ownership, approaches them with empathy, and delights in getting outcomes.
• Is ridiculously helpful, taking initiative to make your coworkers’ lives easier by investing time to mentor and proactively share your knowledge and learnings through writings, 1:1s, and team meetings.
• Experience in fintech, fraud systems, or the broader risk domain is a strong plus.

The total rewards package at Mercury includes base salary, equity (stock options), and benefits. Our salary and equity ranges are highly competitive within the SaaS and fintech industry and are updated regularly. New hire offers are made based on a candidate’s experience, expertise, geographic location, and internal pay equity relative to peers. Our target new hire base salary ranges for this role are: US employees (any location): $239,000 - $298,800; Canadian employees (any location): CAD 225,900 - 282,400.

*Mercury is a fintech company, not an FDIC‑insured bank. Banking services provided through Choice Financial Group and Column N.A., Members FDIC.

Mercury values diversity & belonging and is proud to be an Equal Employment Opportunity employer. All individuals seeking employment at Mercury are considered without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, age, sex, marital status, ancestry, physical or mental disability, veteran status, gender identity, sexual orientation, or any other legally protected characteristic. We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations throughout the recruitment process for applicants with disabilities or special needs.