Staff Software Engineer, Card Issuing and Payments

Stripe
New York +2 more
Hybrid

Who this role is best for

A natural match if you have experience leading large-scale financial systems and working on distributed backend architectures.

Best fit for

  • Candidates with 10+ years of experience leading large-scale financial systems and APIs
    — “10+ years of industry software engineering experience, with demonstrated impact at a staff or equivalent scope
  • Individuals with a track record of shipping highly available and financially correct systems
    — “Proven track record designing and shipping large-scale user-facing products with distributed backend systems that are both highly available and financially correct.

Things to consider

  • Requires strong communication skills for aligning non-direct reports across teams
    — “Ability to influence technical direction and align multiple teams without direct authority
  • High ownership mindset is critical for defining problems and plans in ambiguous situations
    — “High ownership mindset—comfortable with ambiguity, able to define the problem and the plan

How to stand out

  • Highlight experience with multi-year architecture decisions and cross-functional projects
    — “Define and drive the technical strategy for Issuing, including multi-year architecture decisions
  • Demonstrate leadership in building APIs that simplify complex financial processes
    — “Strong API design instincts and the ability to build simple, developer-friendly interfaces over inherently complex financial and regulatory requirements.
  • Emphasize contributions to engineering standards, tooling, and processes in prior roles
    — “Collaborate with stakeholders across the company to build new features at large-scale, while improving internal engineering standards, tooling, and processes.
Pace · Fast PacedCollaboration · HighAutonomy · HighDecision Impact · Company

Derived from job-description analysis by Serendipath's career intelligence engine.

What success looks like

  • reliable and efficient systems
  • scalable infrastructure
  • cross-cutting initiatives
Typical background
software engineeringsystem architecture

Skills & requirements

Required

API DesignSystem ArchitectureMulti-year PlanningCross-functional CollaborationMentorship

Preferred

AI IntegrationCloud Services

Stack & domain

ApisBackend ServicesCard IssuingFinancial ServicesCollaborationMentoringFinanceSoftware Engineering

About the role

Original posting from Stripe

Who we are

About Stripe

Stripe is a financial infrastructure platform for businesses. Millions of companies—from the world's largest enterprises to the most ambitious startups—use Stripe to accept payments, grow their revenue, and accelerate new business opportunities. Our mission is to increase the GDP of the internet, and we have a staggering amount of work ahead. That means you have an unprecedented opportunity to put the global economy within everyone's reach while doing the most important work of your career.

About the team

The Issuing team owns the Stripe card issuing product end to end from the APIs and backend services that power spend cards, debit cards, and charge cards, to the dashboard and embedded components that businesses use to manage their card programs. We build the infrastructure and interfaces that let platforms and businesses instantly create, distribute, and control payment cards at scale, and we're responsible for the full cardholder lifecycle across commercial and consumer issuing.

We're at an inflection point. Issuing is expanding into new geographies, new card categories (stablecoin, healthcare, consumer credit), and deeper partnerships with major platforms. This is a high-impact, high-visibility role at the intersection of financial infrastructure, developer-facing APIs, and end-user product experience, and it requires someone who can lead technically across a complex, fast-moving domain.

What you'll do

Define and drive the technical strategy for Issuing, including multi-year architecture decisions across backend services, APIs, and user-facing surfaces. 

Own end-to-end technical solutions for critical systems, authorization flows, spending controls, cardholder management, and card program configuration, ensuring they are reliable, scalable, and operationally sound. 

Identify and lead infrastructure investments that unlock new issuing models, including geographic expansion, new card program types, and platform-level extensibility. 

Collaborate closely with product managers, design, and cross-functional partners across Issuing, Authorization, Clearing and Settlement, and Balances to drive cross-cutting initiatives from design through launch. 

Make principled build-vs-reuse decisions and produce clear technical roadmaps that balance near-term delivery with long-term platform health. 

Advise engineering and product leadership on technical trade-offs and their downstream implications for the business. 

Drive engineering standards, tooling improvements, and operational rigor across the team. 

Mentor and grow senior engineers, investing in their technical development and helping build the next generation of technical leaders on the team.

Responsibilities

Scope, design, build, and maintain APIs, services, and large-scale systems that reliably and efficiently handle billions of money movement requests. 

Debug and solve critical production issues across services and multiple levels of the stack. Mentor engineers to help them grow. 

Collaborate with stakeholders across the company to build new features at large-scale, while improving internal engineering standards, tooling, and processes. 

Collaborate effectively in a distributed and hybrid team, maintaining open communication and strong connections with colleagues.

Who you are

We're looking for someone who meets the minimum requirements to be considered for the role. If you meet these requirements, you are encouraged to apply. The preferred qualifications are a bonus, not a requirement.

Minimum requirements

10+ years of industry software engineering experience, with demonstrated impact at a staff or equivalent scope (leading initiatives across multiple teams or systems). 

Proven track record designing and shipping large-scale user-facing products with distributed backend systems that are both highly available and financially correct. 

Experience leading cross-functional engineering projects end-to-end — from requirements through architecture, delivery, and post-launch iteration. 

Strong API design instincts and the ability to build simple, developer-friendly interfaces over inherently complex financial and regulatory requirements. 

Ability to influence technical direction and align multiple teams without direct authority, with excellent written and verbal communication across engineers, product, and leadership. 

High ownership mindset—comfortable with ambiguity, able to define the problem and the plan, not just execute a predefined spec. 

Clear, precise communication on complex technical topics for both technical and non-technical audiences.

Preferred qualifications

Experience building or operating real-time transaction processing systems with strict latency and correctness requirements (authorizations, payments, ledgering, settlement). 

Familiarity with card network protocols, BIN sponsorship models, or issuing bank integrations (Visa, Mastercard, or equivalent). 

Experience in regulated financial services—compliance-aware system design, audit trails, financial controls, or KYC or KYB flows. 

Background in embedded finance, card-as-a-service, or Banking-as-a-Service platforms. Experience with high-volume event-driven architectures and the reliability and consistency tradeoffs they introduce. 

Track record of mentoring senior engineers and contributing meaningfully to engineering hiring and culture.

Source: Stripe careers

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