Senior/Staff Engineer

Senior/Staff Engineer

Location: San Francisco, CA or New York, NY
Compensation: $200,000 – $280,000 + 0.4% – 0.8% Equity
Type: Full-Time
Visa Sponsorship: H-1B, O-1, OPT
Priority: High (Hiring Multiple)

About the Company
Client is building global payments infrastructure for the future of work, currently moving $1.5B/year to over 1M payees. The company focuses on high-scale, high-throughput backend systems to enable seamless payments and gig worker payouts.

Company culture emphasizes:
- High autonomy and ownership
- Iterative, high-velocity product development
- Collaboration with highly skilled engineers
- Building systems that handle large amounts of financial data reliably

About the Role — Senior/Staff Engineer
As a Senior/Staff Engineer, you will design, build, and scale production-ready backend systems that process high volumes of data for global payments. You’ll contribute across the stack, collaborate with product and engineering leadership, and take ownership of major technical decisions.

This role is ideal for engineers who:
- Thrive in high-ambiguity, high-impact environments
- Enjoy building end-to-end systems with measurable outcomes
- Want to work on FinTech infrastructure at scale
- Are comfortable iterating quickly and shipping scrappy but robust systems

Tech Stack
- Frontend: React
- Backend: Python
- Infrastructure: AWS, ECS
- Tools: GitHub, Linear, Slack, Notion

Responsibilities
- Design and build scalable backend systems for high-throughput payments
- Launch and iterate on applications or large-scale software projects
- Collaborate with product and engineering teams to deliver impact
- Work with large datasets and distributed systems
- Optionally participate in recruiting: sourcing, interviewing, and hiring engineers

Requirements
- 7+ years experience designing and shipping production-grade systems
- Strong backend experience (Python preferred)
- Comfortable building systems for high-throughput data processing
- Track record of launching and iterating software projects
- Able to move fast and work autonomously
- Recruiting experience is a plus

Green Flags (Strong Matches)
- Experience in FinTech or finance
- Background in traditional finance companies (e.g., Bloomberg, JP Morgan)
- Startup experience (Seed/Series A, 3–4 years)
- Previous experience at high-growth companies like Stripe, Ramp, or Brex
- Infrastructure experience with AWS, K8s
- Worked with Python and React at scale

Red Flags (Avoid)
- Only worked at creative agencies or unrelated industries
- No startup experience

Ideal Companies
- Stripe
- Ramp
- Brex
- Plaid
- Robinhood

Interview Process
1. Phone Screen – Initial discussion of fit and experience
2. Virtual Technical Screen – Pair programming, backend-heavy build from scratch
3. Virtual Systems Design – Collaborative problem-solving session
4. On-site – If take-home/virtual rounds are successful
5. Offer Extended
6. Hired

Benefits & Perks
- Private medical insurance (including dental and vision)
- Unlimited vacation policy
- Regular team off-sites
- 401(k) plan

Biggest Note
- Candidates who are senior and have experience in top fintech companies are almost certain to be shortlisted.