Staff Engineer

📋 Description

• • Own the architecture and evolution of Zip’s real-time money movement and payments platform, powering millions of transactions.
• • Lead cross-team technical direction across distributed systems while embedding AI into engineering workflows and product capabilities.
• • Remote-first role for US-based engineers, with optional collaboration from our NYC office.
• • At Zip, engineers own systems that move real money. Join Zip’s Engineering function and put your name to solving fascinating challenges at scale in an agile, test-driven development environment. If you value good domain-driven design and enjoy delivering quality work at pace, you’ll be a great fit with the squads responsible for building cloud-native software applications that serve millions of customers and process billions of dollars in payments.
• • We are seeking a highly experienced and technically strong Staff Engineer to lead complex, cross-domain initiatives across our platform. In this role, you will set technical direction, drive execution on ambiguous, high-impact problems, and shape the architecture of systems that are critical to our business. This is a hands-on leadership role where you will partner with engineering and product leaders, influence strategic decisions, and mentor senior engineers while raising the bar for scalability, reliability, and engineering excellence across the organization.
• • Interesting problems you’ll get to solve: Design systems that ensure safe, reliable money movement at scale across distributed services; Define and evolve platform patterns for event-driven architectures and cross-team system design; Lead ambiguous, high-impact initiatives from concept to production across multiple teams; Balance speed and long-term platform health in critical financial systems; Embed AI into engineering workflows and help teams adopt scalable, repeatable patterns; Raise the bar for system reliability, performance, and developer experience across the organization; Build systems that ensure financial correctness under failure conditions, including retries, duplication, and reconciliation scenarios; Help define how AI is used across engineering, from individual workflows to team-wide adoption and patterns.
• • What you’ll bring to the team: 12+ years of experience building and operating distributed backend systems in modern engineering environments; Strong experience in payments, fintech, or other correctness-critical systems such as settlement, reconciliation, or transaction processing; Proven ability to use AI in a professional setting, both in your own workflow and in helping teams adopt AI-driven development patterns; Experience leading complex, cross-team initiatives and driving technical direction across multiple systems; Deep expertise in system design, including event-driven architectures, microservices, and high-availability systems; Hands-on engineering mindset. You stay close to implementation and can dive into code, services, and infrastructure when needed; Strong decision-making ability. You can evaluate tradeoffs and make clear technical calls in ambiguous situations; Experience mentoring senior engineers and raising engineering standards across teams; Experience working with cloud platforms such as Azure or AWS, and backend technologies like C#/.NET or similar.
• • Nice to have: Experience building and scaling systems in fintech or other highly regulated environments (e.g., payments, lending, banking); Familiarity with security, compliance, audit, and data protection requirements in regulated domains.
• • What you’ll get in return: Zip is a place where you’ll get out what you put in. The newness of our sector means we need to move at pace and embrace change, and our promise to you when you join the team is that you’ll feel empowered and trusted to make big things happen quickly. We want you to feel welcome and as though you have the support to be yourself, and care for yourself at work. Because it’s important to us that you make the most of the opportunities you’ll get to grow your skills and your career, and be surrounded by smart, friendly people and leaders that have your back. We think these are just some of the best things about being a Zipster. We will also offer you: Flexible working culture; Incentive programs; Unlimited PTO; Generous paid parental leave; Leading family support policies; Company-sponsored 401k match; Learning and wellness subscription stipend; Beautiful Union Square office with a casual dress code; Industry-leading, employer-sponsored insurance for you and your dependents, with several 100% Zip-covered choices available.
• • The Pay Range for this position: $175,000-190,000. This range reflects our US national compensation band (USN). Additional premium percentages may apply based on our tiered premium strategy.
• • Subject to those same considerations, the total compensation package for this position may also include other elements, including a bonus and/or commission awards, in addition to a full range of medical, financial, and/or other benefits.
• • If hired, employees will be in an ‘at-will position’ and the Company reserves the right to modify base salary (as well as any other discretionary payment or compensation or benefit program) at any time, including for reasons related to individual performance, Company or individual department/team performance, and market factors.
• • #LI-Remote
• • Be a part of a team that reflects the diversity of our customers
• • We pride ourselves on being a workplace that provides equal opportunities to people of all ages, cultural backgrounds, sexual orientations, gender identities, abilities, veteran status, and everything else that makes you unique.
• • Equally, we’re committed to ensuring our recruitment processes are accessible and inclusive. Please let us know If there are any adjustments that need to be made to ensure you have a fair and equitable experience.
• • And finally…get to know us
• • Zip is a global ‘Buy Now, Pay Later’ company that gives our millions of customers simpler and fairer ways to pay.
• • We are proud to be a global business built around our US and ANZ core markets working with merchant partners including Amazon, Best Buy, eBay and Uber. United by our mission, purpose and values - Customer First, Own It, Stronger Together & Change The Game - we are the next generation
• • We are Zip, and we are just getting started.
• • Before you apply, give Zip a try -> rebrand.ly/check-zip-out
• • Zip participates in the federal government’s E-Verify program