204K–290K USD / year
Staff Software Engineer, Backend (Observability)
BackendRemote — United States
Published on 2026-10-28
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About this role
Lead the technical direction of Affirm’s observability platform, which processes more than 200 TB of telemetry daily. The role is hands-on and includes setting the roadmap, improving telemetry quality and cost, and mentoring a team of six engineers.
About the company
Affirm offers buy now, pay later financing that lets consumers split purchases into transparent installment payments at checkout. It partners with merchants to provide flexible credit options without late fees.
The team
Observability team
Stack
PythonKotlinAWSMySQLFlinkKubernetesOpenTelemetryKafka
What you'll do
- Own the architecture of the telemetry pipeline, balancing reliability, query performance, and cost.
- Design log-sampling strategies that lower volume and cost while preserving incident-debugging signal.
- Integrate observability practices into AI-assisted development and code review.
- Set technical strategy and lead business-impacting projects.
- Establish operational readiness, including monitoring, on-call processes, playbooks, testing, and alerting.
- Set engineering standards, communicate technical solutions, and mentor a team of six engineers.
What we're looking for
- 8+ years designing, developing, and launching scalable backend systems.
- Experience building highly available distributed systems.
- Experience building or operating high-volume telemetry systems.
- Knowledge of structured and wide events, sampling, cardinality management, and SLOs.
- Experience driving adoption of platform standards across engineering teams.
- Strong technical planning, code quality, communication, and cross-functional collaboration skills.
- Bachelor’s degree in a related field or equivalent practical experience.
Benefits
- 100% subsidized medical coverage for employees and dependents, plus dental and vision coverage.
- Monthly technology, health, and wellness stipends.
- Flexible time off and generous holidays.
- Employee stock purchase plan with a discount.