Staff Software Engineer - Payments Platform

The Briefed; United States; Remote; USD 210,000 - 270,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Compensation & equity options

Health, dental, and vision plans

401(k) retirement savings plan

Remote-first with quarterly in-person

Surges: quarterly in-person sessions

Job summary

Coinbase is a remote-first, high-intensity environment hiring a Staff Software Engineer to join the Payments team within the Platform organization. You will own the architecture and multi-year technical direction of Tier-0/Tier-1 systems, ensuring every transaction is reliable, fault-tolerant, and compliant as Coinbase expands globally.

The role focuses on building fault-tolerant distributed systems at global scale, leading platform initiatives to unify microservices, and driving incident

Qualifications

• 8+ years of professional software engineering experience.
• Deep hands-on experience architecting and operating payment systems, financial infrastructure, or high-volume transactional platforms processing billions in volume.
• Proven track record of building fault-tolerant, highly reliable distributed systems operating at global scale.
• Demonstrated experience leading platform efforts that transform fragmented microservices into unified, reusable systems (e.g., shared frameworks, unified APIs, multi-tenant architectures).
• Proven ownership of production reliability, leading high-severity incident response, and driving systemic postmortem actions across teams.
• History of influencing technical strategy and architecture across organizations without direct authority.

Responsibilities

• Own the multi-year technical strategy and architecture for the Payments platform, defining the long-term roadmap for scaling payment routing, integrations, and funds-flow systems.
• Architect and evolve resilient distributed systems processing high-volume payment traffic, designing for fault isolation, graceful degradation, observability, and strict SLOs.
• Drive technical quality by establishing paved roads, shared frameworks, and coding standards that elevate the engineering bar across the organization.
• Partner with Product, Risk, Compliance, and Operations to translate complex business and regulatory goals into scalable technical architectures.
• Lead high-stakes scaling and reliability initiatives, anticipating system bottlenecks before they impact customers and driving systemic improvements from incident postmortems.
• Accelerate the growth of engineers across the org through hands-on architectural guidance, design reviews, and engineering leadership.

Skills

Distributed systems

Payments systems

Technical leadership

Reliability engineering

Platform architecture

AI workflows

Job description

At Coinbase, we are uncompromising on our mission to increase economic freedom. Coinbase is a remote-first, high-intensity environment where teams gather quarterly for focused, in-person working sessions called \"Surges.\"

We are hiring a Staff Software Engineer to join the Payments team within the Platform organization. The Payments team builds and operates the core infrastructure, workflows, and APIs that power fiat on- and off-ramps for individual and institutional customers, processing billions of dollars in transaction volume across global markets. You will own the architecture and multi-year technical direction of these Tier-0/Tier-1 systems, ensuring every transaction is reliable, fault-tolerant, and compliant as Coinbase expands globally.

Key Responsibilities

• Technical Strategy & Architecture: Own the multi-year technical strategy and architecture for the Payments platform, defining the long-term roadmap for scaling payment routing, integrations, and funds-flow systems.
• High-Volume Distributed Systems: Architect and evolve resilient distributed systems processing high-volume payment traffic, designing for fault isolation, graceful degradation, observability, and strict SLOs.
• Engineering Standards & Frameworks: Drive technical quality by establishing paved roads, shared frameworks, and coding standards that elevate the engineering bar across the organization.
• Cross-Functional Partnership: Partner with Product, Risk, Compliance, and Operations to translate complex business and regulatory goals into scalable technical architectures.
• Reliability & Scaling: Lead high-stakes scaling and reliability initiatives, anticipating system bottlenecks before they impact customers and driving systemic improvements from incident postmortems.
• Technical Mentorship: Accelerate the growth of engineers across the org through hands-on architectural guidance, design reviews, and engineering leadership.

Requirements

Experience & Education

• 8+ years of professional software engineering experience.
• Deep hands-on experience architecting and operating payment systems, financial infrastructure, or high-volume transactional platforms processing billions in volume.

Technical Capabilities & Distributed Systems

• Proven track record of building fault-tolerant, highly reliable distributed systems operating at global scale.
• Demonstrated experience leading platform efforts that transform fragmented microservices into unified, reusable systems (e.g., shared frameworks, unified APIs, multi-tenant architectures).
• Proven ownership of production reliability, leading high-severity incident response, and driving systemic postmortem actions across teams.
• History of influencing technical strategy and architecture across organizations without direct authority.

Modern Workflows & AI Utilization

• Responsible utilization of generative AI tools and workflows to enhance development velocity, system observability, and operational quality.

Benefits & Workplace Perks

• Compensation: Competitive base salary, equity options, and performance bonus eligibility.
• Health Coverage: Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision insurance plans.
• Retirement Savings: 401(k) retirement savings plan with company options.
• Flexibility & Surges: Remote-first work flexibility paired with quarterly in-person team collaboration \"surges.\"