Backend Engineer (Python / Kotlin)

# STAFF SOFTWARE ENGINEER — ONLINE STORAGE / DATABASES
## About the Role
Affirm is seeking a highly skilled and detail-oriented Staff Software Engineer to help drive the technical roadmap for its database infrastructure, with a focus on relational and key-value storage systems. As part of the Online Storage team, you’ll help build and operate managed database platforms that support critical financial transactions, data science models, and other persistence use cases across Affirm.
You’ll set technical strategy on a year-long horizon, design scalable datastore platforms, develop database management and self-service capabilities, and collaborate with Product, Infrastructure, SRE, Design, Analytics, and engineering teams. This role is suited to an experienced backend engineer with deep database expertise and a strong track record building highly available distributed systems at scale.
## Key Responsibilities
* Set the technical strategy for the team over a year-long timeframe and connect it to critical, business-impacting projects.
* Collaborate with Product, Infrastructure, and Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) teams.
* Design and build components of scalable datastore platforms.
* Contribute to multi-region, horizontally scalable, globally available, and high-performance datastore solutions.
* Develop control planes for managing and providing self-service access to hundreds of databases at scale.
* Automate schema and data migrations, disaster recovery, sharding, and performance tuning.
* Collaborate across the product development lifecycle on database solutions.
* Partner with Product Management, Design, and Analytics to ensure technical sustainability, risks, and trade-offs are understood and managed.
* Define and advocate for technical solutions and operational processes that increase team effectiveness.
* Own team operations and availability, including monitoring, triage rotations, playbooks, policies, testing, and alerting.
* Support “keep the lights on” and on-call efforts.
* Establish code review and design standards and advocate for engineering quality beyond the immediate team through writing and technical talks.
* Provide feedback and guidance to develop engineering talent.
* Lead by example and foster a culture of quality and ownership.
* Deliver major features and system components through clear technical and execution plans.
* Deprecate existing functionality when appropriate.
## Required Qualifications
* 8+ years of experience designing, developing, and launching backend systems at scale using languages such as Python or Kotlin.
* 5+ years of hands-on database experience.
* Extensive experience developing highly available distributed systems.
* Experience with technologies such as AWS, MySQL, Spark, and Kubernetes.
* Deep knowledge of relational and/or distributed SQL databases, such as MySQL, PostgreSQL, TiDB, or Vitess.
* Strong understanding of database fundamentals, including:
* Schema design
* Query optimization
* Scaling
* Partitioning
* Sharding
* Performance tuning
* Strong background building and operating databases in cloud environments.
* Experience with database benchmarking, load testing, and capacity planning.
* Familiarity with connection poolers and proxies such as ProxySQL, RDS Proxy, or PgBouncer.
* Experience delivering major features or system components, or deprecating existing functionality, through technical and execution planning.
* Ability to write high-quality, maintainable code that can be understood and used by others.
* Ability to work effectively in ambiguous environments, from low-level language implementation through large-system architecture.
* Demonstrated ability to gather and incorporate feedback from engineering and cross-functional peers.
* Strong verbal and written communication skills.
* Bachelor’s degree in a related field or equivalent practical experience.
## Preferred Qualifications
The source job description does not identify additional qualifications as preferred. The listed database, distributed-systems, backend, cloud, and communication qualifications are presented as requirements.
## Skills & Competencies
* Backend software engineering
* Python and/or Kotlin
* Database engineering
* Relational databases
* Distributed SQL
* MySQL, PostgreSQL, TiDB, and/or Vitess
* Key-value storage systems
* Distributed systems
* AWS
* Spark
* Kubernetes
* Database performance optimization
* Schema design
* Query optimization
* Scaling and partitioning
* Sharding
* Database benchmarking
* Load testing
* Capacity planning
* Database reliability and availability
* Cloud database operations
* REST of database infrastructure and datastore platform development
* Technical strategy and architecture
* Technical planning and execution
* Monitoring and alerting
* Disaster recovery
* Cross-functional collaboration
* Technical communication
* Mentorship and talent development
* Code review and design standards
## Education & Experience
**Education:**
* Bachelor’s degree in a related field or equivalent practical experience.
**Experience:**
* 8+ years designing, developing, and launching backend systems at scale.
* 5+ years of hands-on database expertise.
* Experience with highly available distributed systems.
* Experience building and operating databases in cloud environments.
* Experience with database benchmarking, load testing, and capacity planning.
* Experience delivering major system features or components through technical and execution plans.
## Work Arrangement & Schedule
* **Work Arrangement:** Remote-first
* The majority of roles at Affirm are remote.
* Employees can work almost anywhere within the country of employment.
* Proximal roles may occasionally require work from an assigned Affirm office.
* A limited number of roles are office-based due to job responsibilities.
* The source JD does not specify required weekly hours or weekend requirements.
* **Location-specific base pay ranges:** U.S. positions.
## Compensation & Benefits
**USA Base Pay Range:**
* **CA, WA, NY, NJ, CT:** $230,000–$290,000 per year
* **All other U.S. states:** $204,000–$264,000 per year
Affirm states that new employees typically start at the beginning of the applicable pay range. Compensation may vary based on location, experience, and job-related skills.
Additional compensation and benefits may include:
* Equity rewards
* Monthly stipends for health, wellness, and technology spending
* Medical coverage with premiums fully covered by Affirm for employees and dependents
* Dental and vision coverage
* Flexible Spending Wallets for technology, food, lifestyle, and family-forming expenses
* Vacation and holiday schedules
* Employee Stock Purchase Plan (ESPP), allowing employees to purchase Affirm shares at a discount
## Compliance / Additional Information
* Affirm is a remote-first company.
* Affirm is committed to providing an inclusive interview experience and reasonable accommodations for candidates with disabilities.
* For applicable U.S. positions in Los Angeles or San Francisco, Affirm will consider qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records in accordance with applicable

Work arrangement
Yes