Staff Software Engineer, Backend - Platform (Payment Rails)

We are looking for a Staff Software Engineer to join the Payment Rails team within Coinbase's Platform organization. Payment Rails serves as Coinbase’s gateway between the fiat and crypto economy, connecting our products to a wide range of banking and payment providers, from the largest global institutions to the most innovative, tech‑forward processors. We operate a network of payment integrations and routing that power fiat on‑ and off‑ramps for both individual and institutional customers, moving hundreds of billions of dollars in transaction volume each year. In this role, you’ll shape the architecture and technical direction of this network, designing and scaling systems that ensure every payment is reliable, efficient, and correct.

• →Own the technical strategy, architecture, and roadmap for scaling Payment Rails’ network of payment partner integrations and routing, so Coinbase can enable more customers to participate in the crypto economy across more markets and payment options.
• →Build and scale complex distributed systems that process high-volume, high-reliability payment traffic—designing for fault isolation, graceful degradation, strong observability, and clear SLOs for Tier-0/Tier-1 services.
• →Drive an AI-first approach to engineering workflows—identify where AI-powered tools can accelerate development, improve code quality, and enhance operational efficiency across the team and broader engineering org.
• →Partner cross-functionally with Product, Risk, Compliance, and Operations to translate ambiguous business requirements into well-scoped technical solutions that balance speed, safety, and regulatory requirements.
• →Lead high-stakes scaling initiatives and define the technical direction for how Coinbase moves money—anticipating bottlenecks before they occur and driving proactive, systematic improvements.
• →Raise the engineering bar across Payment Rails and adjacent orgs by establishing paved roads, design patterns, and best practices that elevate team technical quality through mentorship, design reviews, and process improvements.
• →Mentor and train other team members on design techniques and coding standards.

• 8+ years of experience in software engineering.
• Experience building payment systems, financial infrastructure, or high-volume transactional systems.
• You've designed and built fault-tolerant, highly reliable distributed systems at scale—with a demonstrable track record of architecting systems that handle billions of dollars in transaction volume.
• Platform-builder mindset: you've led efforts to turn fragmented services and bespoke integrations into coherent, reusable platforms (e.g., shared frameworks, unified APIs, multi-tenant architectures).
• Strong operational excellence: experience owning production reliability, leading high-severity incident response, and driving systemic improvements from postmortems across multiple teams or domains.
• Collaborative leadership: history of influencing across teams and organizations without direct authority, driving consensus on high-impact technical decisions, and representing your area in org-level forums.
• Demonstrates the ability to responsibly use generative AI tools and copilots (e.g., LibreChat, Gemini, Glean) in daily workflows, continuously learn as tools evolve, and apply human-in-the-loop practices to deliver business-ready outputs and drive measurable improvements in efficiency, cost, and quality.

• Experience with payment processors, banking integrations, or payment gateways (e.g., Stripe, Plaid, SWIFT, ACH, SEPA, card networks).
• Background in crypto or blockchain technologies, including familiarity with stablecoin transfers, on-chain settlements, or cross-chain payment flows.
• Experience working in highly regulated industries where safety, compliance, and user trust are paramount—particularly in fintech or financial services.

Job #: P76350

Coinbase is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer.  All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, creed, gender, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, sex, gender expression or identity, sexual orientation or any other basis protected by applicable law. Coinbase will also consider for employment qualified applicants with criminal histories in a manner consistent with applicable federal, state and local law.  For US applicants, you may view the Employee Rights and the Know Your Rights notices by clicking on their corresponding links. Additionally, Coinbase participates in the E-Verify program in certain locations, as required by law. 

Coinbase is also committed to providing reasonable accommodations to individuals with disabilities. If you need a reasonable accommodation because of a disability for any part of the employment process, please contact us at accommodations[at]coinbase.com to let us know the nature of your request and your contact information.   For quick access to screen reading technology compatible with this site click here to download a free compatible screen reader (free step by step tutorial can be found here).

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For select roles, Coinbase is piloting an AI tool based on machine learning technologies to conduct initial screening interviews to qualified applicants. The tool simulates realistic interview scenarios and engages in dynamic conversation. A human recruiter will review your interview responses, provided in the form of a voice recording and/or transcript, to assess them against the qualifications and characteristics outlined in the job description.  

For select roles, Coinbase is also piloting an AI interview intelligence platform to transcribe and summarize interview notes, allowing our interviewers to fully focus on you as the candidate. 

The above pilots are for testing purposes and Coinbase will not use AI to make decisions impacting employment. To request a reasonable accommodation due to disability, please contact accommodations[at]coinbase.com