Senior Software Engineer, Backend (Credit Reports)

The Credit Reports team owns the systems that power how Affirm reports consumer credit data accurately, reliably, and at scale to credit bureaus. This work sits at the intersection of financial correctness, regulatory compliance, data quality, and platform reliability, and directly impacts consumers’ credit profiles and Affirm’s trust with regulators and partners. As a Senior Software Engineer (L6) on the Credit Reports team, you will own and drive large, high-impact initiatives that span multiple services and stakeholders. You will drive projects end-to-end, influence technical strategy across multiple services, and raise the engineering bar through mentorship, design leadership, and strong ownership. This role requires deep judgment, a bias for correctness, and the ability to navigate ambiguity in a regulated domain.

• You will be responsible for owning and delivering quarterly goals for your team, leading engineers on your team through ambiguity to solve open-ended problems, and ensuring that everyone is supported throughout delivery.
• You will support your peers and stakeholders in the product development lifecycle by collaborating with product management, design & analytics by participating in ideation, articulating technical constraints, and partnering on decisions that properly consider risks and trade-offs.
• You will proactively identify project, process, technology or business issues, advocate for them, and lead in solving them.
• You will support the operations and availability of your team’s artifacts by creating and monitoring metrics, escalating when needed, and supporting “keep the lights on” & on-call efforts.
• You will foster a culture of quality and ownership on your team by setting or improving code review and design standards for your team, and advocating for them beyond your team through your writing and tech talks.
• You will help develop talent on your team by providing feedback and guidance, and leading by example.
• Own and lead complex, cross-service initiatives related to credit reporting, dispute handling, corrections, and data reconciliation.
• Design and evolve distributed systems that ensure accurate, timely, and auditable reporting to credit bureaus at scale.
• Partner closely with Product, Compliance, Legal, Risk, and Data teams to translate regulatory and business requirements into robust technical solutions.
• Set technical direction for key parts of the Credit Reports platform, influencing architecture, data models, and operational practices.
• Drive reliability and correctness by defining quality standards, monitoring, alerting, and incident response practices for mission-critical systems.
• Mentor and support other engineers, providing design guidance, code reviews, and coaching that raises overall team capability.
• Proactively identify risks and gaps (technical, operational, or compliance-related) and lead efforts to mitigate them before they become issues.
• Represent the team in technical and cross-functional forums, clearly communicating tradeoffs, decisions, and long-term impact.

• You have 4+ years of experience designing, developing and launching backend systems at scale using languages like Python or Kotlin.
• You have a track record of developing highly available distributed systems using technologies like AWS, MySQL and Kubernetes.
• You have experience defining a technical plan for the delivery of a significant feature or system component with an elegant, simple and extensible design. You write high quality code that is easily understood and used by others.
• You are proficient at making significant changes in a large code base, and have developed a suite of tools and practices that enable you and your team to do so safely.
• Your experience demonstrates that you take ownership of your growth, proactively seeking feedback from your team, your manager, and your stakeholders.
• You have strong verbal and written communication skills that support effective collaboration with our global engineering team.
• This position requires either equivalent practical experience or a Bachelor’s degree in a related field.
• Proven ability to lead ambiguous projects end-to-end, from problem definition through delivery and long-term maintenance.
• Proven ability to lead ambiguous projects end-to-end, from problem definition through delivery and long-term maintenance.
• High bar for code quality, data correctness, and operational excellence, especially in regulated or high-stakes domains.
• Experience working cross-functionally with non-engineering partners and incorporating their constraints into technical designs.
• Ability to mentor and influence engineers beyond your immediate project scope.
• Comfort making tradeoffs under real-world constraints (time, risk, compliance, scale).

Nice to Have

• Experience with Kotlin as a backend language
• Experience with data reconciliation, backfills, and auditability in large-scale systems.
• Experience in fintech, credit reporting, payments, or regulated financial systems.
• Familiarity with credit bureau reporting, disputes, or regulatory frameworks (e.g., FCRA).
• This position requires either equivalent practical experience or a Bachelor’s degree in a related field.

Pay Grade - N
Equity Grade - 8
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: $190,000 - $240,000
USA base pay range (all other U.S. states) per year: $169,000 - $219,000
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