Affirm

Senior Software Engineer, Backend (Streaming)

United States

Not SpecifiedCompensation
Senior (5 to 8 years), Expert & Leadership (9+ years)Experience Level
Full TimeJob Type
UnknownVisa
Fintech, Data InfrastructureIndustries

Job Description

Employment Type: [Not Specified] Location Type: [Not Specified] Salary: Base Pay Grade- N, Equity Grade- 8

Company Overview

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.

Position Overview

The Streaming team at Affirm forms the backbone of several online and offline workloads at Affirm and drives the strategy for event-driven architecture, stream processing, replication, data exploration, discovery, and validation. We leverage existing open-source technologies like Kafka, Flink, Spark, and also build our own as needed to design and build real-time data processing pipelines that handle massive volumes of data across our distributed systems.

As a member of our team, you would spend time identifying and executing on new use cases of streaming data infrastructure and frameworks, designing and scaling our existing infrastructure, and working closely with other teams to promote the optimal use of data at the company. This role requires deep expertise in stream processing technologies and a passion for building scalable, fault-tolerant data infrastructure.

Responsibilities

  • Own and deliver quarterly goals for your team, leading engineers through ambiguity to solve open-ended problems, and ensuring everyone is supported throughout delivery.
  • 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.
  • Proactively identify project, process, technology, or business issues, advocate for them, and lead in solving them.
  • 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 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.
  • Help develop talent on your team by providing feedback and guidance, and leading by example.

Requirements

  • 5+ years of industry experience in building large-scale production systems.
  • Strong hands-on experience with Apache Kafka for large-scale event streaming and message queueing.
  • Experience building and operating robust and highly available infrastructure.
  • Experience working with Apache Iceberg and data platforms like Snowflake, Glue, or Databricks.
  • Expertise with at least one stream processing framework like Spark, Samza, Flink, Beam, etc.
  • Solid programming skills in Python, Java, or Kotlin.
  • Experience leading technical projects and mentoring junior engineers.
  • Experience defining a technical plan for the delivery of a significant feature or system component with an elegant, simple, and extensible design.
  • Ability to write high-quality code that is easily understood and used by others.
  • Proficiency at making significant changes in a large codebase, and developed a suite of tools and practices to do so safely.
  • Demonstrated ownership of personal growth, proactively seeking feedback from your team, manager, and stakeholders.
  • Strong verbal and written communication skills that support effective collaboration with our global engineering team.
  • Equivalent practical experience or a Bachelor’s degree in a related field.

Strong Plus:

  • Experience with Apache Iceberg table format, CDC (Change Data Capture) tools.
  • Knowledge of Relational and NoSQL databases.

Compensation & Benefits

  • Employees new to Affirm typically come in at the start of the pay range. Affirm focuses on providing a simple and transparent pay structure which is based on a variety of factors, including location.

Skills

Kafka
Flink
Spark
Stream processing
Data pipelines
Distributed systems
Event-driven architecture
Scalability
Fault tolerance
Metrics monitoring
Problem-solving
Collaboration

Affirm

Provides buy now, pay later financing solutions

About Affirm

Affirm offers point-of-sale financing solutions as an alternative to traditional credit cards. It allows consumers to make purchases and pay over time through installment plans, often without hidden fees or deferred interest. Affirm partners with merchants to integrate its payment solutions into online and in-store shopping experiences, using user-friendly plugins and APIs. The company generates revenue from interest and fees on loans to consumers, as well as fees from merchants for offering its financing options. Affirm also provides a merchant dashboard for transaction processing and promotional tools to help businesses market these financing options effectively. The goal of Affirm is to empower consumers with flexible payment options while providing value to merchants in the e-commerce and retail markets.

San Francisco, CaliforniaHeadquarters
2012Year Founded
$1,113.8MTotal Funding
IPOCompany Stage
Fintech, Financial ServicesIndustries
1,001-5,000Employees

Benefits

Spending wallets: Access tech, food, lifestyle, and family planning wallets for your expenses
Supportive communities: Get involved with our employee resource groups and community groups
Remote-first workforce: If your role is remote, you can set up shop anywhere in your home country
Generous time off: Take the time you need when life happens
Health benefits: Get a plan that fits your needs
Mental healthcare: Take care of your mind with great mental health programs
Parental leave: Birth and non-birth parents get 18 weeks paid leave. Plus, a 4-week return-to-work transition program, at full base pay.
Compensation: We have a simple, flexible, and transparent remote-first compensation structure so you can make the best decisions for yourself and your family.
Away days: We offer 24 company-wide paid days off—which help our teams collectively pause to recharge.
Learning & development: Engage in exciting learning programs to level up your growth.

Risks

Increased CFPB regulation could raise compliance costs for Affirm.
Affirm faces competition from new entrants in the BNPL market.
Reliance on partners like Adyen and Apple poses potential revenue risks.

Differentiation

Affirm offers transparent installment loans with no hidden fees or surprises.
Affirm partners with over 2,000 merchants, including major retail brands.
Affirm's user-friendly APIs enable seamless integration with online and in-store platforms.

Upsides

Affirm's partnership with Adyen expands its reach in North America.
Affirm's $4 billion partnership with Sixth Street boosts financial stability.
Affirm's BNPL services gain traction among high-income consumers.

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