Staff Software Engineer, Backend (Identity Decisioning)
Staff backend engineer on Affirm's Identity team, which owns KYC, user lifecycle, and identity decisioning for all markets outside North America. You set the team's technical strategy, build highly available distributed backend services (Python/Kotlin, AWS, MySQL, Spark, Kubernetes), and own operational reliability, code standards, and mentorship.
- Compensation
- CA$181K–CA$241K / yr
- Location
- Remote Canada
- Work setup
- Remote
- Seniority
- Staff
- Employment
- Not specified
- Experience
- 8+ years
- Category
- Backend
- Posted
Skills
Must have
- 8+ years of experience designing, developing and launching backend systems at scale using languages like Python or Kotlin
- Extensive track record developing highly available distributed systems using technologies like AWS, MySQL, Spark and Kubernetes
- Experience delivering major features, system components, or deprecating existing functionality through a technical and execution plan
- Ability to thrive in ambiguity and work from low-level language idioms up to large-system architecture
- Demonstrated growth and impact through gathering and iterating on feedback from engineering and cross-functional peers
- Strong verbal and written communication skills for collaboration with a global engineering team
- Bachelor's degree in a related field or equivalent practical experience
Full description
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 on what matters most.
Affirm’s Identity team is mission-critical to the customer checkout experience. When a customer chooses Affirm, one of the first steps is an identity check, and our ability to make the right decision directly impacts conversion, revenue, fraud exposure, and regulatory compliance. Our team owns Identity for all markets outside North America, playing a key role in Affirm’s international expansion. We are responsible for KYC, user lifecycle management, and identity decisioning across multiple regulatory environments. This work is about shaping how Affirm adapts its core Identity platform to new market dynamics, customer expectations, and compliance requirements.
What you'll do
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You will be responsible for setting technical strategy for your team on a year-long time scale, and help your team tie it together with critical, business-impacting projects.
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You will collaborate across teams in the product development lifecycle by collaborating with product management, design & analytics to ensure technical sustainability, risks and trade-offs are well understood and managed.
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You will act as a force-multiplier for your team through your definition and advocacy of technical solutions and operational processes.
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You take ownership of your team’s operations and availability by ensuring you have the right monitoring, triage rotations, playbooks, polcities, testing and alerting in place to support “keep the lights on” & on-call efforts.
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You will foster a culture of quality and ownership on your team by setting code review and design standards for your team, and advocating for them beyond your team through your writing and tech talks.
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You will help develop talent on your team by providing feedback and guidance, and leading by example.
What we look for
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You have 8+ years of experience designing, developing and launching backend systems at scale using languages like Python or Kotlin.
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You have an extensive track record of developing highly available distributed systems using technologies like AWS, MySQL, Spark and Kubernetes.
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You have experience delivering major features, system components or deprecating existing functionality in a system through the definition of a technical and execution plan. You write high quality code that is easily understood and used by others.
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