Staff Software Engineer - Full-Stack Trust & Safety

At Affirm, we exist for the moments that matter—giving people a clear, predictable way to pay over time with no hidden fees, no surprises, and no tradeoffs.

The Account Management team sits within Trust & Safety in Affirm’s Checkout organization. We build secure, intuitive experiences that empower customers to protect, manage, and recover access to their accounts safely. Our mission spans the entire security lifecycle—from preventing unauthorized account takeovers to driving self-service recovery features (such as Self-Service Phone Change, Settings & Security Center, and user credential updates) that eliminate customer support friction.

As a Staff Software Engineer, you will act as a force multiplier across the team, setting year-long technical strategies, defining architectural baselines, establishing quality code standards, and building resilient full-stack systems with Python, Kotlin, React, AWS, MySQL, and Kubernetes.

Key Responsibilities

• Year-Long Technical Strategy: Set technical roadmaps on a year-long time horizon, tying architectural investments directly to business-impacting fraud prevention and account security initiatives.
• Full-Stack Architecture Ownership: Design, build, and deploy low-latency backend microservices and modern declarative web applications—moving seamlessly from low-level code idioms to high-level system architecture.
• Cross-Functional Partnership: Collaborate closely with Product Management, Design, and Analytics to clarify technical trade-offs, manage risks, and balance features against system sustainability.
• Operational & On-Call Excellence: Own operational availability, triage rotations, playbooks, unit/integration testing strategies, monitoring alerts, and incident response routines.
• Engineering Quality & Standards: Establish code review rigor, design doc standards, and tech-talk sessions to advocate engineering best practices within and beyond your pod.
• Talent Development: Mentor and grow software engineers across the team through continuous technical feedback, technical planning oversight, and leading by example.

Requirements

Software Engineering & Technical Depth

• 8+ years of professional software engineering experience delivering scalable production software.
• Backend Systems at Scale: Hands-on proficiency designing, developing, and launching backend systems using Python, Kotlin, AWS, MySQL, and Kubernetes.
• Modern Web Application Development: Proficiency building web applications using declarative UI frameworks such as React or Vue.
• Execution & System Deprecation: Proven experience writing high-quality code and executing technical plans for major feature launches, system modernizations, or legacy deprecations.
• Ambiguity & Deep Technical Curiosity: Comfortable navigating complex, ambiguous systems across low-level execution details and multi-service cloud topologies.
• Technical Communication: Excellent written and verbal communication skills to whiteboard designs, write RFCs, and collaborate across global engineering organizations.
• Education: Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related quantitative field (or equivalent practical experience).

Total Rewards & Benefits

• Transparent Compensation & Equity: Base pay ranging from $204,000 to $290,000 USD (based on geographic zone) + equity grants (Grade 13) + Employee Stock Purchase Plan (ESPP) discount.
• 100% Employer-Paid Healthcare: 100% subsidized medical, dental, and vision insurance premiums for employees and their eligible dependents.
• Monthly Spending Stipends: Dedicated monthly stipends for home-office tech setups, health, and wellness choices.
• Time Off & Flexibility: Flexible time off policies, paid parental leave, and generous annual holiday schedules.