Staff Software Engineer, Backend (Identity International) at Affirm

✨ The Stack take on this Affirm job

• 🏢 Affirm has 38 jobs here, 25 with visa sponsorship see all
• 🛂 Visa: Highly Qualified Professional permit. Education: Higher education degree guide
• 💡 No salary shown. Ask Affirm if it is above the minimum.

Updated 2026-11-03, from our data and official sources.

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About the role

Responsibilities:
- Define and drive technical strategy and roadmap for the Identity International team
- Collaborate with product, design and analytics to scope and deliver business-impacting projects
- Architect and implement backend systems for Identity, KYC verification and identity data management
- Ensure operational readiness: monitoring, triage rotations, runbooks, on-call and incident response
- Set code review, design and testing standards; promote quality across teams through writing and talks
- Own end-to-end delivery of major features, migrations or deprecations and make architectural trade-offs
- Mentor and grow engineering talent; provide constructive feedback and technical guidance

Requirements:
- 8+ years designing and launching backend systems at scale (Python or Kotlin preferred)
- Proven experience building highly available distributed systems (AWS, MySQL, Spark, Kubernetes)
- Strong track record of delivering major features or system changes with technical plans
- Experience with monitoring, alerting and operational practices for critical services
- Excellent communication and cross-functional collaboration skills
- Comfortable with ambiguity and making decisions across low-level and high-level technical domains
- Willingness to participate in on-call rotations and incident management

Responsibilities

You will set the technical strategy for the Identity International team and collaborate with cross-functional partners to deliver business-impacting projects. Additionally, you will act as a force-multiplier by defining technical standards, mentoring team members, and ensuring system availability through on-call rotations.

Requirements

The role requires 8+ years of experience in designing and launching backend systems at scale using Python or Kotlin. You must have a proven track record with distributed systems and cloud technologies like AWS, MySQL, and Kubernetes.

Key skills

• Python — in 1173 other listings on The Stack
• Kotlin — in 249 other listings on The Stack
• AWS — in 788 other listings on The Stack
• MySQL — in 92 other listings on The Stack
• Spark — in 54 other listings on The Stack
• Kubernetes — in 569 other listings on The Stack
• Backend systems — in 32 other listings on The Stack
• Distributed systems — in 332 other listings on The Stack
• Identity management
• KYC verification
• System architecture
• Technical strategy
• API design
• Code review
• Mentorship
• On-call management

On The Stack (as of 2026-11-03)

• Affirm has 37 other listings on The Stack, 24 of them marked as offering visa sponsorship.
• 67 visa-sponsored jobs in Spain on The Stack, posted in the last 60 days.
• 180 visa-sponsored software engineer jobs in Europe on The Stack, posted in the last 60 days.

Frequently asked questions about Affirm

Is this Staff Software Engineer, Backend (Identity International) role still open?

It was posted on 2026-08-28. Listings more than 30 days old may no longer be active, so check Affirm's site before applying.

Does Affirm offer visa sponsorship?

This listing is marked as offering visa sponsorship. Eligibility rules are set by the employer, so check the details on Affirm's site.

Where is this role located?

The listing gives the location as Spain. It is marked remote.

What skills does this role ask for?

The listing names: Python, Kotlin, AWS, MySQL, Spark, Kubernetes, Backend systems, Distributed systems, Identity management, KYC verification, System architecture, Technical strategy, API design, Code review, Mentorship, On-call management.