Staff Software Engineer, Backend (Search)

Affirm

Confirmed live yesterday High trust

Remote

Quick summary

Work type: Remote
Location: Canada
Salary: $230,000–$290,000 / yr
Posted: 11 days ago
Freshness: Confirmed live yesterday

Market check

Salary context

Above market

How this pay compares to similar roles

Similar $205k

This role $260k

$125k $308k

below market most similar roles pay here above market

This role pays more than 93% of similar roles. Most pay $186,550–$224,250 — the blue band above. At the midpoint, this role pays about $260k versus about $205k for comparable roles.

Based on 240 similar postings.

Employer

About Affirm

Affirm is a buy-now, pay-later (BNPL) financial technology company that offers point-of-sale installment loans to consumers, allowing them to split purchases into fixed monthly payments with transparent terms. Industry: Financial Technology & Consumer Lending

Affirm currently has 56 open roles on FindRole.

Listed pay typically runs $195,000–$255,000 across 54 roles with salary data.

Most-posted roles

View all roles at Affirm

At a glance

TL;DR · Staff Software Engineer, Backend (Search)

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The Staff Software Engineer, Backend (Search) joins a new team focused on building a high-impact search and recommendation platform for a shopping destination. In this role, you will set long-term technical strategies, lead critical business projects, and act as a force-multiplier by defining operational processes and code standards. You will manage team operations, including monitoring, triage rotations, and testing, while collaborating with product management and design to ensure technical sustainability. The position requires expertise in designing highly available distributed systems using Python, Kotlin, AWS, MySQL, Spark, and Kubernetes. You will also utilize React for consumer experiences. The work involves solving complex problems in routing, discovery, and monetization while laying the foundation for an agentic platform to improve merchant value and consumer shopping experiences.

What does a Software Engineer earn in Remote?

Median $208800 from 350 postings across 49 companies.

See salary data

Skills

Python Kotlin AWS MySQL Spark Kubernetes React Distributed Systems Recommendation Engines Monitoring Alerting

What you'll do

Set the technical strategy for your team on a year-long time scale.
Align technical solutions with critical, business-impacting projects.
Manage technical sustainability, risks, and trade-offs throughout the product development lifecycle.
Own team operations by establishing monitoring, triage rotations, playbooks, and alerting policies.
Set and advocate for code review and design standards across the organization.
Provide feedback and guidance to develop the talent on your team.
Deliver major features and system components through defined technical and execution plans.

What we're looking for

You must have 8+ years of experience designing, developing, and launching backend systems at scale using languages like Python or Kotlin.
You must have an extensive track record of developing highly available distributed systems using technologies like AWS, MySQL, Spark, and Kubernetes.
You must have 2+ years of experience working in search or related recommendation engines.
You must have experience developing consumer experiences using UI frameworks like React.
You must have experience delivering major features or system components through the definition of a technical and execution plan.
You must have strong verbal and written communication skills to support effective collaboration with a global engineering team.
This position requires a Bachelor’s degree in a related field or equivalent practical experience.

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