Staff Software Engineer, Backend - Payments Platform
WFA Digital Insight
The demand for skilled software engineers in the fintech space has surged in recent years, with a notable 25% increase in remote job listings. As companies like Coinbase continue to expand their global footprint, the need for experts who can build and maintain complex payment systems has never been more pressing. With its commitment to increasing economic freedom, Coinbase stands out as a pioneer in the industry. Before applying, candidates should be aware that this role requires a unique blend of technical expertise, leadership skills, and adaptability in a rapidly evolving market.
Job Description
About the Role
The Staff Software Engineer role at Coinbase is a critical position within the Payments team, responsible for building and operating the infrastructure, workflows, and APIs that power fiat on- and off-ramps for individual and institutional customers. This role entails defining the technical strategy and architecture for the Payments platform, ensuring every payment is reliable, scalable, and correct as Coinbase expands into new regions and payment methods. The ideal candidate will have a deep understanding of distributed systems, payment processing, and financial infrastructure.As a Staff Software Engineer, you will be part of a remote-first team that values collaboration, innovation, and continuous learning. You will work closely with cross-functional teams, including Product, Risk, Compliance, and Operations, to translate business requirements into well-scoped technical solutions. Your expertise will be crucial in driving engineering quality, establishing paved roads, shared frameworks, and coding standards that elevate the technical bar across the Payments team and adjacent organizations.
What You Will Do
- Own the multi-year technical strategy and architecture for the Payments platform, defining the roadmap for scaling integrations, routing, and funds-flow systems across global markets.
- Build and evolve distributed systems that process high-volume payment traffic, designing for fault isolation, graceful degradation, observability, and clear SLOs for Tier-0/Tier-1 services.
- Drive engineering quality by establishing paved roads, shared frameworks, and coding standards that elevate the technical bar across the Payments team and adjacent organizations.
- Partner cross-functionally with Product, Risk, Compliance, and Operations to translate ambiguous business requirements into well-scoped technical solutions that balance speed, safety, and regulatory needs.
- Lead high-stakes scaling and reliability initiatives, anticipating bottlenecks before they occur and driving systematic improvements from incident postmortems.
- Strengthen team capabilities through hands-on mentorship, design reviews, and architectural guidance that accelerate the growth of engineers across the team.
- Collaborate with the product team to identify and prioritize project requirements, ensuring alignment with business objectives and customer needs.
- Develop and maintain technical documentation to ensure knowledge sharing and facilitate onboarding of new team members.
- Participate in code reviews, providing constructive feedback to improve code quality and adherence to coding standards.
What We Are Looking For
- 8+ years of experience in software engineering, including hands-on experience building payment systems, financial infrastructure, or high-volume transactional platforms.
- Demonstrated track record of architecting and delivering fault-tolerant, highly reliable distributed systems at scale, with experience processing billions of dollars in transaction volume.
- Led platform-building efforts that transformed fragmented services into coherent, reusable systems (e.g., shared frameworks, unified APIs, multi-tenant architectures).
- Proven experience owning production reliability, leading high-severity incident response, and driving systemic improvements across multiple teams or domains.
- History of influencing technical direction across teams and organizations without direct authority, including representing your area in org-level architecture and strategy forums.
- Utilizes generative AI responsibly, maintaining human oversight to deliver business-ready outputs and drive measurable improvements in workflow efficiency, cost, and quality.
- Strong understanding of computer science fundamentals, including data structures, algorithms, and software design patterns.
- Experience with cloud-based technologies and containerization (e.g., Docker, Kubernetes).
Nice to Have
- Experience with blockchain technology and cryptocurrency platforms.
- Knowledge of cryptographic principles and secure coding practices.
- Familiarity with regulatory requirements in the financial services industry (e.g., AML, KYC, PCI-DSS).
- Participation in open-source software development and contribution to technical communities.
Benefits and Perks
- Competitive salary and equity package.
- Comprehensive health, vision, and dental insurance.
- Flexible PTO and remote work arrangements.
- Opportunities for professional growth and career development.
- Access to cutting-edge technologies and tools.
- Participation in company-wide hackathons and innovation challenges.
- Annual stipend for professional development and conference attendance.
How to Stand Out
- tip: Develop a strong portfolio that showcases your experience in building distributed systems and payment processing platforms.
- tip: Highlight your ability to lead technical teams and drive systemic improvements in production reliability.
- tip: Familiarize yourself with Coinbase's technology stack and be prepared to discuss how you can contribute to its growth and development.
- tip: Practice your coding skills and be ready to complete technical challenges as part of the interview process.
- tip: Research the company culture and values, and be prepared to discuss how your own values and work style align with those of Coinbase.
- tip: Prepare to discuss your experience with generative AI and how you can utilize it responsibly to drive business outcomes.
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