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.
Affirm is looking for a Senior Staff Software Engineer to take on a key role in defining the technical direction and foster innovation across the Checkout engineering organization. You’ll collaborate with engineering leaders, cross-functional teams, and stakeholders to build scalable, reliable, and high-performing solutions. You'll help shape best practices, guide architectural choices, and drive the successful delivery of critical initiatives. This role requires a high level of technical ability, leadership skills, strong cross-functional communication, and a creative mindset.
Checkout is responsible for shaping customer experience across the journey from first touch to finalizing a purchase. In this role, you will need to gain a deep understanding of the business, product, and engineering context, and utilize that context to define the requirements, vision, and roadmap of the Checkout area. You will lead the team to influence and align with business stakeholders and engineering partners, and deliver the vision over multiple years in incremental milestones.
What You'll Do
- Define the multi-year, multi-team technical strategy and deliver it through direct implementation and broad technical leadership
- Architect and build next-generation Purchasing services, ensuring high availability and low latency to support Affirm’s financial products.
- Influence and align with cross-functional leaders across the organization, guided by deep domain context and engineering expertise
- Mentor engineers and advocate for engineering excellence, influencing best practices across teams
- Navigate ambiguity, bringing clarity to complex engineering, product, and business discussions
What We Look For
- 12+ years relevant Software Engineering experience
- Kotlin development experience is a plus, Python or Kotlin expertise preferred
- Proven experience delivering multi-year, high-impact projects with broad cross-functional collaboration
- Passionate about Affirm's Mission: "Deliver Honest Financial Products that improve lives"
- Enjoys cross team collaboration especially with product managers and designers
- Cares about the details in the user experience
- Excellent written and verbal communication, especially in asynchronous formats (RFCs, design docs, project plans)
- This position requires either equivalent practical experience or a Bachelor’s degree in a related field.
Base Pay Grade - R
Equity Grade - 15
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: $260,000 - $310,000
USA base pay range (all other U.S. states) per year: $232,000 - $282,000
#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:
- Health care coverage - Affirm covers all premiums for all levels of coverage for you and your dependents
- Flexible Spending Wallets - generous stipends for spending on Technology, Food, various Lifestyle needs, and family forming expenses
- Time off - competitive vacation and holiday schedules allowing you to take time off to rest and recharge
- ESPP - An employee stock purchase plan enabling you to buy shares of Affirm at a discount
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.
Top Skills
What the Team is Saying
What We Do
Since our founding over a decade ago, our mission has been to deliver honest financial products that improve lives. That mission hasn’t changed — and it never will. At Affirm, we believe money shouldn’t dictate your direction in life; it should open up options instead of limiting them, and help you get where you’re going without getting in your way. That’s why we offer people the financial flexibility to choose what works for them — in finances and in life.
Why Work With Us
Who is an Affirmer?
/noun/
Someone who believes finance shouldn’t be complicated. We come from a diverse set of backgrounds and we’re driven by the desire to improve lives through honest financial products. We define success by challenging one another to bring our best ideas to every single project—and we have fun while doing it.
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Affirm Offices
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Employees work remotely.
Affirm is a remote-first company! Our employees can work anywhere in the U.S. but if an office is more your style, we have office locations in San Francisco, Chicago, New York City, and Pittsburgh.
