Staff Software Engineer, Backend (Search) staff Remote Remote US Python Kotlin AWS MySQL Spark Kubernetes React Search Recommendation Engines Backend Systems Distributed Systems Technical Strategy Search is one of the highest impact surfaces, and we are building a new team that will own not just the recommendations and search experiences, but also explore opportunities to improve customer experience, monetization, and merchant value. This team will help make affirm the definitive destination consumers turn to for discovery, understanding, comparing, and shopping through affirm, and will also lay the foundation for an agentic platform. You will be responsible for setting technical strategy for your team on a year-long time scale, and help your team tie it together with critical, business-impacting projects.

You will collaborate across teams in the product development lifecycle by collaborating with product management, design & analytics to ensure technical sustainability, risks and trade-offs are well understood and managed. You will act as a force-multiplier for your team through your definition and advocacy of technical solutions and operational processes. You take ownership of your team’s operations and availability by ensuring you have the right monitoring, triage rotations, playbooks, policies, testing and alerting in place to support “keep the lights on” & on-call efforts.

You will foster a culture of quality and ownership on your team by setting 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. You have 8+ years of experience designing, developing and launching backend systems at scale using languages like Python or Kotlin.

You have an extensive track record of developing highly available distributed systems using technologies like AWS, MySQL, Spark and Kubernetes. You have experience developing consumer experiences using UI frameworks like React You have experience delivering major features, system components or deprecating existing functionality in a system through the definition of a technical and execution plan. You write high quality code that is easily understood and used by others.

You thrive in ambiguity, and are comfortable moving from low level language idioms all the way to the architecture of large systems to understand how they work. This position requires either equivalent practical experience or a Bachelor’s degree in a related field.

Equity

Grade - 13 Base pay is part of a total compensation package that may include equity rewards, monthly stipends for health, wellness and tech spending, and perks (including 100% subsidized medical coverage, dental and vision for you and your dependents.) Remote-first with flexibility built in Affirm is proud to be a remote-first company. Some positions may occasionally require in-person work at an affirm office, and a few are office-based due to the nature of the work.

Health coverage at no cost: Flexible time off and generous holiday calendars help you rest when you need to. We’re committed to providing an inclusive interview process, including accommodations for candidates with disabilities. If you need support, we’re happy to help.

📌 Staff Software Backend Engineer - Remote (Calgary)
🏢 Xapply
📍 Calgary