Staff Software Engineer

## About the Role The Staff Software Engineer role at Affirm represents a unique opportunity for a seasoned engineer to provide technical leadership across the Marketplace Experience team. This team is pivotal in shaping the consumer experience, particularly in how shoppers find and engage with merchants and financing options. The role entails defining and driving long-term technical strategy while maintaining a hands-on approach, ensuring the evolution of systems to support new discovery paradigms, personalization, and experimentation. As a senior individual contributor, the successful candidate will operate as a force multiplier, setting architectural direction, leading cross-team initiatives, and elevating engineering excellence across the team. This involves navigating the complexities of product velocity and technical sustainability, as well as mentoring engineers to enhance their skills. The position is remote, based in Poland, offering the flexibility of working from anywhere while being part of a global team that is reinventing credit to make it more honest and friendly.

## What You Will Do - Define and drive the technical strategy for the Marketplace Experience team, aligning it with the company's broader objectives.

• Collaborate across product development lifecycle with product management, design, and analytics to ensure technical sustainability and manage risks.
• Act as a technical leader and advocate for solutions and operational processes that enhance team efficiency and product quality.
• Ensure the team’s operations and availability meet high standards by implementing appropriate monitoring, triage rotations, playbooks, and testing.
• Foster a culture of quality and ownership within the team by setting high code review and design standards and advocating for these standards beyond the team.
• Develop talent within the team by providing constructive feedback and guidance, leading by example to elevate the team’s performance.
• Participate in on-call efforts and contribute to the resolution of technical issues to maintain system reliability.
• Collaborate with dependent platform teams to ensure seamless integration and operation of Marketplace Experience components.
• Identify areas for process improvement and implement changes to increase efficiency and reduce latency.
• Stay updated with the latest technologies and trends, applying this knowledge to improve the technical strategy and implementation of the Marketplace Experience.

## What We Are Looking For - A minimum of 8 years of experience in designing, developing, and launching backend systems at scale, using languages such as Python or Kotlin.

• Extensive experience with highly available distributed systems, including technologies like AWS, MySQL, Spark, and Kubernetes.
• A proven track record of delivering major features or system components, with experience in defining technical and execution plans.
• Ability to write high-quality code that is easily understood and utilized by others.
• Proficiency in Excel, with the ability to analyze and present complex data insights.
• Experience in navigating ambiguity and thriving in environments where priorities can shift rapidly.
• Strong understanding of system architecture and the ability to move from low-level language details to high-level system design.
• A growth and impact trajectory that demonstrates mastery in gathering and iterating on feedback from peers.

## Nice to Have - Experience with agile development methodologies and version control systems like Git.

• Knowledge of cloud-based technologies and containerization using Docker.
• Familiarity with security best practices and compliance standards relevant to financial services.
• Experience in leading or participating in code reviews and contributing to the improvement of the codebase.

## Benefits and Perks - Competitive salary and equity package.

• Flexible remote work arrangements, with the opportunity to work from anywhere in Poland.
• Comprehensive health insurance and wellness programs.
• Generous paid time off and holiday policy.
• Access to cutting-edge technologies and tools.
• Professional development opportunities, including training, mentorship, and conference sponsorship.
• A dynamic and supportive team environment with regular team-building activities.

- Tip: Ensure your resume and cover letter highlight specific examples of technical leadership and strategy development in previous roles.

• To stand out, prepare to discuss your approach to system architecture and how you stay current with emerging technologies.
• Practice explaining complex technical concepts simply, as this will be crucial in your interactions with cross-functional teams.
• Be ready to provide examples of your experience with distributed systems and how you have handled scalability and reliability challenges.
• Showcase your proficiency in Excel by preparing examples of how you have used it to analyze and present data insights in a technical context.
• During salary negotiation, highlight your unique strengths and the value you bring to the role, citing industry standards for remote software engineering positions.