Senior Staff Software Engineer, Payments

About the role

This Senior Staff Software Engineer role at Coinbase focuses on the Payments Platform, which is central to integrating traditional finance with the crypto economy. The work involves leading the technical strategy across payment rails, orchestration, and transfers to support new products and global growth. You will be responsible for defining the multi-quarter technical vision and ensuring the platform can handle significant increases in payment volume.

A key aspect of this position is architecting and evolving the core Payments platform for high availability, low latency, and cost efficiency at a global scale. This includes leading the design and rollout of major cross-team initiatives, such as new global payment rails and system migrations. The role demands setting and enforcing technical standards for financial correctness, covering idempotency, reconciliation, and auditability for all money movement paths.

Success in this role means collaborating closely with various internal teams like FinHub, Payments Risk, and Product to create cohesive architectures that balance user experience with risk controls, compliance, and unit economics. You will also provide technical mentorship to other senior engineers, improving system design quality and long-term maintainability. Using data and observability, you will identify and address platform gaps to enhance reliability and efficiency.

The annual salary for this position ranges from $253,895 to $298,700.

Skills that matter here

• Python: This role requires deep expertise in backend programming, and Python is one of the languages used for building and operating large-scale distributed systems.
• Go: As a backend programming language, Go is utilized for developing highly available and high-performance systems within the Payments platform.
• Java: Experience with Java is necessary for backend development, contributing to the architecture and evolution of the core Payments platform.
• money‑movement architecture: The role requires deep experience with financial transaction systems, including payment service providers, ISO 20022 standards, routing, and double-entry accounting for high-volume payments.
• cloud‑native architecture: Expertise in cloud-native design is essential for building and operating scalable and resilient distributed systems for the Payments platform.
• distributed systems: This position demands extensive experience in building and operating large-scale distributed systems in a production environment, ensuring high availability and performance.

Who this role suits

• You have a decade or more of experience building and operating large-scale distributed systems.
• You possess deep expertise in financial transaction architectures and high-volume payment systems.
• You are adept at anticipating scaling bottlenecks and proactively implementing solutions.
• You are committed to technical excellence and enjoy mentoring other senior engineers.

From the employer

What you’ll be doing (ie. job duties):

• Define and drive the multi‑quarter technical strategy for Payments, spanning rails, orchestration, and transfers, to support new products, geos, and significant growth in payment volume.
• Architect and evolve the core Payments platform (rails integrations, routing, and funds-flow services) for high availability, low latency, and cost efficiency at global scale.
• Lead end‑to‑end design and rollout of large, cross‑team initiatives (e.g., new global rails, decomp/migrations, resiliency programs), breaking high ambiguity into clear milestones and measurable outcomes.
• Set and enforce technical standards for financial correctness across Payments, including idempotency, reconciliation, failure‑mode handling, and auditability for all money‑movement paths.
• Partner closely with FinHub, Payments Risk, Regulatory Platform, and Product to design cohesive architectures that balance customer experience, risk controls, compliance, and unit economics.
• Provide deep technical mentorship to senior/staff engineers across Payments pods, upleveling system design quality, review rigor, and long‑term maintainability.
• Use data and observability signals (e.g., success rates, latency, cost, incident patterns) to identify structural platform gaps and lead systematic reliability and efficiency improvements.
• Represent Payments in executive and cross‑org forums, clearly communicating tradeoffs, aligning stakeholders on strategy, and securing buy‑in for high‑impact technical bets.

What we look for in you (ie. job requirements):

• 10+ years building and operating large‑scale distributed systems in production.
• Deep money‑movement architecture experience (PSPs, ISO 20022, routing, double‑entry, high‑volume payment systems).
• Deep expertise in backend programming (e.g., Python, Go, Java) and cloud‑native architecture.
• Proven track record designing highly available, high‑performance systems.
• Ability to anticipate scaling bottlenecks before they occur and take decisive, proactive measures.
• Experience leading cross‑functional technical initiatives and mentoring senior engineers.
• Commitment to technical excellence, sharing best practices, and fostering a strong engineering culture.
• Ability to distill complex technical concepts into clear and actionable solutions.

Nice to haves:

• Experience designing and operating ledgering or trading systems at large scale.
• Strong financial acumen with experience handling accounting data and financial transactions with high precision and reliability.
• Experience collaborating closely with finance and accounting teams.