Staff Software Engineer (Platform - Identity IDV)

Coinbase; Augusta (ME); Remote; USD 218,000 - 257,000; Full time

Job summary

Coinbase is hiring a Staff Software Engineer to own the multi-year technical vision for the Identity IDV platform, impacting how verifications scale globally across Retail, Prime, and Institutional lines. You will define the identity trust layer and lead platform consolidation.

You will drive cross-team strategy, design vendor-agnostic orchestration, and enable self-serve configuration for future products and regions, while maintaining security and reliability at scale.

Qualifications

• 8+ years in backend engineering for large-scale fintech/regulated systems.
• Leadership across end-to-end design and delivery of cross-team backends.
• Deep distributed systems experience: scalability, reliability, HA.
• Expert Go coding with gRPC, microservices, AWS, Kubernetes.
• Experience in identity, KYC, fraud or payments domains.
• Responsible use of generative AI with human oversight.

Responsibilities

• Own end-to-end architecture and technical direction for Coinbase's IDV platform.
• Lead platform consolidation by migrating IDV onto a single platform and retire legacy rules.
• Design and build vendor-agnostic orchestration with real-time routing and failover.
• Scale the platform to support new products, regions, and verification modalities with self-serve config.
• Drive cross-team technical strategy and set platform abstractions used across the Identity org.

Skills

Backend engineering

Distributed systems

Go / GoLang

gRPC / Microservices

AWS / Cloud

Kubernetes

Identity / KYC / Fraud

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or related field

Tools

gRPC

AWS

Kubernetes

Docker

Job description

Ready to do the most impactful work of your career? At Coinbase, we are uncompromising on our mission to increase economic freedom. The bar is high, the environment is intense, and we like it that way. This isn't a place for complacency, it’s a place to be pushed past your perceived limits. If you're ready to build the future of finance alongside people who refuse to settle for "good enough," you belong here. Coinbase is a remote-first, but not remote-only company. Expect to get together quarterly for intense in-person working sessions called “surges.” learn more about working at Coinbase.

Staff Software Engineer, Backend (Platform - Identity IDV)

We're hiring a Staff Software Engineer to own the multi-year technical vision and architecture for Coinbase's identity verification platform within Platform. This platform powers the decision engine, vendor orchestration, and infrastructure that determines whether an identity is genuine at global scale - processing approximately 700K verifications per month across Retail, Prime, and Institutional business lines. You'll define the identity trust layer that every Coinbase product will be built on, leading a three-year arc from platform consolidation through vendor-agnostic orchestration to self-serve scalability for the next billion users.

What you'll do:

• Own end-to-end architecture and technical direction for Coinbase's IDV platform - the decision engine, vendor orchestration layer, and verification infrastructure that all business lines depend on.
• Lead platform consolidation by migrating all IDV onto a single decision-engine-driven platform, retiring 100+ legacy rules and fragmented paths, and eliminating single-vendor points of failure.
• Design and build vendor-agnostic orchestration with automated, real-time routing and failover that selects the optimal vendor per request and dynamically balances fraud prevention (FAR) against user access (FRR/SCR).
• Scale the platform to support every new product, region, and verification modality (document, biometric, liveness) with self-serve configuration so any Coinbase team integrates IDV without a dependency request.
• Drive cross-team technical strategy and set the abstractions, APIs, and platform patterns that the broader Identity org builds on, influencing at the Staff level across multiple pods.

Required Skills and Experience:

• 8+ years of backend software engineering with a track record of deploying and operating large-scale production systems in regulated or fintech environments.
• Proven technical leadership owning end-to-end design and delivery of complex, cross-team backend systems, including system design, architecture, API/data-model design, and production rollout.
• Deep distributed-systems expertise spanning scalability, reliability, API design, and high availability for Tier-0 services.
• Expert-level coding in Go (or equivalent systems language) with hands-on experience in gRPC/microservices, AWS, and Kubernetes.
• Experience in identity, KYC, fraud infrastructure, vendor orchestration, or payments domains with the ability to turn ambiguous compliance and platform problems into actionable technical roadmaps.
• Utilizes generative AI responsibly, maintaining human oversight to deliver business-ready outputs and drive measurable improvements in workflow efficiency, cost, and quality.

*Pay Transparency Notice:** *Base salary varies by location (see range below). Total compensation may also include equity and bonus eligibility, and benefits (medical, dental, vision, 401(k)).

Annual base salary range (excluding equity and bonus):

$218,025—$256,500 USD

• *Equal Opportunity Employer: *Coinbase is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, protected veteran status, or genetic information. Applicants with criminal histories will be considered consistent with applicable federal, state, and local laws.