Software Engineer II, Backend (Reliability Platform)
WFA Digital Insight
The demand for skilled software engineers in the reliability space has surged, with companies like Affirm leading the charge. As remote work continues to rise, positions that blend traditional distributed systems engineering with AI-assisted development are becoming highly coveted. With the growth of e-commerce and digital payments, the need for robust and reliable systems is more pressing than ever. Affirm stands out for its commitment to a remote-first culture and its mission to reinvent credit. Before applying, candidates should be prepared to showcase their proficiency in Python, experience with AI-assisted development tools, and a deep understanding of what drives system health and reliability.
Job Description
About the Role
The Software Engineer II position at Affirm represents a unique opportunity to blend traditional distributed systems engineering with AI-assisted development. This role is pivotal in designing and building a next-generation reliability platform for Affirm’s production systems, providing a single place for teams to understand, debug, and improve the health of their services. The ideal candidate will be someone who thrives in a rapidly iterating environment, where the ability to ship and refine code quickly is as important as maintaining high bars for reliability, quality, and maintainability.This position is highly creative and hands-on, requiring a strong intuition for “vibe coding” and a passion for building delightful developer-facing features and APIs. The engineer will be working closely with partner teams to understand pain points and translate them into simple, powerful solutions, making this role an excellent fit for someone who enjoys collaboration and is adept at turning ambiguous requirements into working solutions.
What You Will Do
- Build a centralized reliability command center to provide a unified view of system health, risk, and reliability across services and environments.
- Create AI agents that can assist with incident triage, root-cause exploration, log/trace summarization, and recommended next actions.
- Develop delightful developer-facing features and APIs to help engineers explore data, debug issues, and make better decisions.
- Utilize AI-assisted development tools to prototype, refactor, and ship high-quality code quickly.
- Own projects end-to-end, from requirements and architecture to implementation, testing, rollout, and iteration based on feedback.
- Collaborate closely with partner teams, including product, infrastructure, data, and SRE, to understand pain points and develop solutions.
- Participate in the design and implementation of new features and improvements to existing systems.
- Contribute to the development of best practices and standards within the engineering team.
What We Are Looking For
- A Bachelor’s degree in a related field or equivalent practical experience.
- 1.5+ years of experience as a software engineer, with a strong proficiency in Python.
- Experience architecting data-intensive applications and robust APIs.
- Problem-solving and product sense, with the ability to take ambiguous requirements and rapidly iterate towards a working solution.
- Hands-on experience with AI-assisted development tools and enthusiasm for using them to build and ship features faster.
- Practical use of LLMs or AI frameworks to enhance automation and guidance.
- Strong collaboration skills, with the ability to work closely with cross-functional teams.
- A deep understanding of system health, reliability, and the factors that influence them.
Nice to Have
- Experience with reliability engineering and the development of reliability platforms.
- Knowledge of cloud computing platforms, such as AWS or Google Cloud.
- Familiarity with containerization using Docker and orchestration using Kubernetes.
- Experience with agile development methodologies and version control systems like Git.
Benefits and Perks
- Competitive base salary.
- Equity rewards.
- Monthly stipends for health, wellness, and tech spending.
- 100% subsidized medical, dental, and vision coverage for you and your dependents.
- Flexible remote work arrangement, with the option to work from anywhere in the U.S.
- Opportunities for professional growth and development in a rapidly expanding company.
- Access to cutting-edge technologies and tools, including AI-assisted development platforms.
How to Stand Out
- Ensure you have a strong portfolio that showcases your experience with Python, AI-assisted development tools, and reliability engineering.
- Prepare examples of how you’ve used data to inform product decisions and improve system reliability.
- Highlight any experience with cloud computing, containerization, and orchestration.
- Be ready to discuss your approach to collaboration and how you handle ambiguous requirements.
- Show enthusiasm for Affirm’s mission and a willingness to adapt to a rapidly changing environment.
- Consider reaching out to current or former employees to gain insights into the company culture and the role.
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