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.
The Merchant & Partner Lifecycle (M&PL) team is at the forefront of Affirm’s architectural transformation. We are addressing critical architectural risks by consolidating merchant lifecycle orchestration into a newly cohesive domain.
You will act as a technical leader building out the brand new lifecycle-orchestrator service that’s at the heart of multiple connected systems. Your work will deliver immediate availability improvements through system simplification and isolation, and modernize older parts of the codebase.
What You'll Do
Design & expand the backbone of our platform to scale to hundreds of thousands of merchants from all around the world
Design and align the scope of work with other teams to deliver cross-team projects
Partner with Engineering Manager and Team Lead to execute the long-term vision of the team
Execute technical strategy for broad or complex requirements with insightful and forward-looking approaches that go beyond the direct team and solve large open-ended problems
Utilize agentic development tools like Claude Code to automate parts of the development process
Improve engineering standards, tooling, and processes throughout the organization
What We Look For
3+ years of experience as a backend software engineer
Familiarity with Domain-Driven Design, distributed systems, and how architectural decisions affect performance and maintainability
Experience with concepts such as data models, API design (http and RPC), state machines, event-driven architecture, and database design
Excellent communication skills, both written and verbal. Must be proficient in asynchronous communication–written tech specs, ADRs, project plans, etc.
Experience designing, developing, and launching backend systems (our stack: AWS, gRPC, Snowflake, Kotlin, Python, MySQL, Kubernetes). Java and Kotlin experience are especially helpful.
Prior experience with monitoring and alerting systems (sentry.io, rollbar, chronosphere, kibana)
This position requires either equivalent practical experience or a Bachelor’s degree in a related field.
Base Pay Grade - L
Equity Grade - 6
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, experience and job-related skills.
Base pay is part of a total compensation package that may include equity rewards, monthly stipends for health, wellness and tech spending, and benefits (including 100% subsidized medical coverage, dental and vision for you and your dependents.)
USA base pay range (CA, WA, NY, NJ, CT) per year: $160,000 - $210,000
USA base pay range (all other U.S. states) per year: $142,000 - $192,000
#LI-Remote
Affirm is proud to be a remote-first company! The majority of our roles are remote and you can work almost anywhere within the country of employment. Affirmers in proximal roles have the flexibility to work remotely, but will occasionally be required to work out of their assigned Affirm office. A limited number of roles remain office-based due to the nature of their job responsibilities.
We’re extremely proud to offer competitive benefits that are anchored to our core value of people come first. Some key highlights of our benefits package include:
We believe It’s On Us to provide an inclusive interview experience for all, including people with disabilities. We are happy to provide reasonable accommodations to candidates in need of individualized support during the hiring process.
[For U.S. positions that could be performed in Los Angeles or San Francisco] Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance and Los Angeles Fair Chance Initiative for Hiring Ordinance, Affirm will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.
By clicking "Submit Application," you acknowledge that you have read Affirm's Global Candidate Privacy Notice and hereby freely and unambiguously give informed consent to the collection, processing, use, and storage of your personal information as described therein.
At Affirm, we’re using today’s technology to bring significant disruptive innovation to the financial industry. We focus on improving the lives of consumers by delivering simple, honest and transparent financial products.
We have roles across a variety of teams, including engineering, product, finance, operations, revenue, marketing, people and more.
A note to applicants: Fake job and recruiting scams are on the rise. Affirm will never ask you to pay any upfront fees or send you any checks to purchase equipment during any part of the recruiting process. Affirm only uses legitimate company email address domains (either “@affirm.com” or "@us.greenhouse-mail.io”) to communicate with candidates via email.
Affirm is also proud to be a remote-first company! Attracting great people starts by finding talent in different places. That's why we built remote work into the DNA of how we do business—but if an office space is more your style, we have offices in Chicago, New York City, Pittsburgh, San Francisco, Seattle, Toronto, Warsaw, Madrid and London.
Not to mention we have comprehensive and award-winning benefits that were made for you.
Interested in learning more? Check out our careers page and apply today!
Visit affirm.com/careers for more information.
