Staff Software Engineer, Backend (Continuous Integration)

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.

We are seeking a seasoned Staff Engineer to help drive our Continuous Integration (CI) team. This role is critical in ensuring the reliability, scalability, and efficiency of our development pipelines, enabling engineers across the company to ship high-quality software quickly and confidently. The Staff Engineer will help drive the design, implementation, and optimization of systems that support automated testing, build orchestration, and deployment.

What You’ll Do

• Systems & Operations

• Own the design, scalability, and reliability of build and pipelines across multiple services and platforms.

• Ensure fast, reliable feedback cycles for developers by optimizing build times, test coverage, and reporting.

• Implement monitoring, alerting, and incident response processes for CI systems to minimize downtime.

• Collaboration & Enablement

• Work closely with across engineering to ensure smooth integrations and deployment workflows.

• Identify developer pain points and lead initiatives to improve productivity through tooling, automation, and best practices.

• Evangelize CI/CD practices across the organization to raise engineering efficiency standards.

• Leadership & Strategy

• Contribute to and help drive the vision for continuous integration and developer productivity infrastructure.

• Lead and mentor other CI engineers, fostering a culture of ownership, collaboration, and technical excellence.

• Partner with engineering leadership to align CI systems with broader product and platform goals.

What We Look For

• Proven experience driving and leading engineering efforts in CI, build systems, or developer productivity domains.
• Strong background in modern build systems (e.g. GitHub, Buildkite, Artifactory, Bazel).
• Familiarity with cloud-native environments (AWS, Kubernetes) and infrastructure-as-code practices.
• Solid programming background (Python, Kotlin, Java, or similar) and ability to guide technical decision-making.
• Excellent problem-solving skills, with the ability to balance long-term vision with short-term impact.
• This position requires either equivalent practical experience or a Bachelor’s degree in a related field
• Proficiency with managing build systems and frameworks for large monorepos. Preferred experience in Bazel.
• Active contributor to open source projects or previous experience with large-scale software development at a leading tech company is a plus.
• This position requires either equivalent practical experience or a Bachelor’s degree in a related field.

About You

• You are driven by a passion for CI/CD and possess a deep commitment to enhancing developer experiences.
• You excel in a collaborative team setting, valuing diverse perspectives and contributions.
• You are proactive, taking initiative to solve complex systems challenges and drive impact across the organization.
• Demonstrates curiosity about AI tools and emerging technologies, with a willingness to learn and leverage them to enhance productivity, collaboration, or decision-making.

Base Pay Grade - P

Equity Grade - 13

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: $225,000 - $275,000

USA base pay range (all other U.S. states) per year: $200,000 - $250,000

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.

Benefits

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.

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