Senior Software Engineer, Backend (Comms Platform)

About Affirm

Affirm is reinventing credit to make it more honest and friendly, giving consumers the flexibility to buy now and pay later without any hidden fees or compounding interest.

About the Comms Platform Team

The Comms Platform team is responsible for managing critical services that are essential to the success and sustainability of our organization. In simple terms, we handle transactional communication send-outs to our customers via email, SMS, and push notifications. These services demand attention to detail, proactive maintenance, and swift response times to ensure seamless operations.

Our recent high-priority initiatives include re-architecture/platform modernization, high availability and internationalization efforts; these are vital for our organization's growth and competitiveness in the market. These initiatives require dedicated expertise and resources to execute efficiently and effectively. Without adequate capacity, we risk delays, reduced quality, and missed opportunities to achieve key strategic objectives; but most important - our Customers deserve always on time and high quality comms!

What You'll Do

• Own and Deliver Goals: Responsible for owning and delivering quarterly goals for your team, leading engineers through ambiguity to solve open-ended problems, and ensuring everyone is supported throughout delivery.
• Collaborate with Stakeholders: Support peers and stakeholders in the product development lifecycle by collaborating with product management, design & analytics, participating in ideation, articulating technical constraints, and partnering on decisions that properly consider risks and trade-offs.
• Proactive Issue Resolution: Proactively identify project, process, technology or business issues, advocate for them, and lead in solving them.
• Support Operations: Support the operations and availability of your team’s artifacts by creating and monitoring metrics, escalating when needed, and supporting “keep the lights on” & on-call efforts.
• Foster Quality and Ownership: Foster a culture of quality and ownership on your team by setting or improving code review and design standards, and advocating for them beyond your team through writing and tech talks.
• Develop Talent: Help develop talent on your team by providing feedback and guidance, and leading by example.
• On-Call Rotation: Participate in an on-call rotation as a requirement.

What We Look For

• Backend Systems Experience: 5+ years of experience designing, developing, and launching backend systems at scale using languages like Python or Kotlin.
• Distributed Systems Expertise: Track record of developing highly available distributed systems using technologies like AWS, MySQL, and Kubernetes.
• Technical Planning and Design: Experience defining a technical plan for the delivery of a significant feature or system component with an elegant, simple, and extensible design. Write high-quality code that is easily understood and used by others.
• Codebase Modification: Proficiency in making significant changes in a large codebase, and developed a suite of tools and practices that enable you and your team to do so safely.
• Ownership and Growth: Experience demonstrates taking ownership of growth, proactively seeking feedback from your team, manager, and stakeholders.
• Communication Skills: Strong verbal and written communication skills that support effective collaboration with our global engineering team.
• Education/Experience: Requires either equivalent practical experience or a Bachelor’s degree in a related field.

Compensation & Benefits

• Base Pay Grade: N
• Equity Grade: 4
• Pay Structure: Employees new to Affirm typically start at the beginning of the pay range. Affirm focuses on a simple and transparent pay structure based on factors including location, experience, and job-related skills.
• Total Compensation: Base pay is part of a total compensation package that may include monthly stipends for health, wellness, and tech spending, and benefits (including 100% subsidized medical coverage, dental, and vision for you and your dependents). Employees may also be eligible for additional benefits.