Senior Staff Software Engineer, Payments

About the role

This Senior Staff Software Engineer will be instrumental in shaping the technical direction of Coinbase's Payments platform. The role focuses on defining multi-quarter strategies for rails, orchestration, and transfers, ensuring the platform supports new products, geographical expansion, and increased payment volumes. A key responsibility involves evolving the core platform for high availability, low latency, and cost efficiency at a global scale, directly impacting how traditional money moves into the crypto economy.

The position demands leadership in end-to-end design and rollout of major cross-team initiatives, such as new global payment rails or system migrations. This includes breaking down complex, ambiguous problems into clear milestones and measurable outcomes. The engineer will also establish and enforce technical standards for financial correctness, covering aspects like idempotency, reconciliation, and auditability for all money-movement paths, ensuring precision and reliability.

Success in this role means collaborating closely with various internal teams, including FinHub, Payments Risk, and Product, to create architectures that balance user experience, risk controls, compliance, and economic efficiency. The Senior Staff Engineer will also provide significant technical mentorship to other engineers, elevating system design quality and maintainability. This involves using data and observability to identify and address platform gaps, leading to systematic improvements in 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, with Python being one of the primary languages used for building and operating large-scale distributed systems.
• Go: Deep expertise in backend programming, including Go, is essential for architecting and evolving the core Payments platform for high performance and scalability.
• Java: The position requires strong backend programming skills, with Java listed as a key language for developing robust and highly available payment systems.
• money‑movement architecture: A core requirement is deep experience with money-movement architecture, including PSPs, ISO 20022, routing, and double-entry systems, to manage high-volume payment processing.
• cloud‑native architecture: Expertise in cloud-native architecture is critical for designing and operating the Payments platform at a global scale, ensuring efficiency and reliability.
• distributed systems: The role demands over 10 years of experience building and operating large-scale distributed systems in production, which is fundamental to the Payments platform's infrastructure.

Who this role suits

• Someone who thrives on defining long-term technical strategies and translating them into actionable plans for critical financial platforms.
• An engineer who excels at leading complex, cross-functional initiatives with high ambiguity, bringing clarity and measurable results.
• A person deeply committed to technical excellence and setting stringent standards for financial correctness and system reliability.
• An individual who enjoys mentoring senior engineers and fostering a strong engineering culture through technical leadership and best practices.

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.