About this Software Engineer II, Backend (Reliability Platform) role at Affirm
Affirm is reinventing credit to make it more honest and friendly, giving consumers the flexibility to buy now and pay later without any hidden fees or compounding interest.
We’re looking for a software engineer to design and build a next-generation reliability platform for Affirm’s production systems. You’ll blend traditional distributed systems engineering with AI-assisted development to give teams a single place to understand, debug, and improve the health of their services.
This is a highly creative, hands-on role for someone who loves “vibe coding” — rapidly iterating, shipping, and refining with strong intuition— while still holding a very high bar for reliability, quality, and maintainability.
What you will do
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Build a centralized reliability command center that gives teams a unified view of system health, risk, and reliability across services and environments.
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Create AI agents that can assist with incident triage, root-cause exploration, log/trace summarization, and recommended next actions.
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Create delightful developer-facing features and APIs that help engineers explore data, debug issues, and make better decisions.
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Use AI-assisted development tools (e.g., Cursor, Claude, Copilot-like tools) as leverage to prototype, refactor, and ship high-quality code quickly.
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Own projects end-to-end: requirements, architecture, implementation, testing, rollout, and iteration based on feedback.
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Collaborate closely with partner teams (product, infra, data, SRE) to understand pain points and translate them into simple, powerful solutions.
What we look for
- This position requires either equivalent practical experience or a Bachelor’s degree in a related field
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Strong proficiency in Python, with experience architecting data-intensive applications and robust APIs
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Problem-solving and product sense: you care about the "what" and the "why," not just the "how." You are capable of taking ambiguous requirements and rapidly iterating towards a working solution
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Hands-on experience with AI-assisted development, such as Cursor, Claude, or similar tools, and enthusiasm for using them to build and ship features faster.
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Practical use of LLMs or AI frameworks to enhance automation and guidance with guardrails and citations
Base Pay Grade - L
Equity Grade - 5
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 monthly stipends for health, wellness and tech spending, and benefits (including 100% subsidized medical coverage, dental and vision for you and your dependents). In addition, the employees may be eligible for equity rewards offered by Affirm Holdings, Inc. (parent company).
CAN base pay range per year: $123,000 - $183,000
#LI-Remote
Affirm is proud to be a remote-first company! The majority of our roles are remote and you can work almost anywhere within the country of employment. Affirmers in proximal roles have the flexibility to work remotely, but will occasionally be required to work out of their assigned Affirm office. A limited number of roles remain office-based due to the nature of their job responsibilities.
We’re extremely proud to offer competitive benefits that are anchored to our core value of people come first. Some key highlights of our benefits package include:
- Health care coverage - Affirm covers all premiums for all levels of coverage for you and your dependents
- Flexible Spending Wallets - generous stipends for spending on Technology, Food, various Lifestyle needs, and family forming expenses
- Time off - competitive vacation and holiday schedules allowing you to take time off to rest and recharge
- ESPP - An employee stock purchase plan enabling you to buy shares of Affirm at a discount
We believe It’s On Us to provide an inclusive interview experience for all, including people with disabilities. We are happy to provide reasonable accommodations to candidates in need of individualized support during the hiring process.
[For U.S. positions that could be performed in Los Angeles or San Francisco] Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance and Los Angeles Fair Chance Initiative for Hiring Ordinance, Affirm will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.
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