Lead backend observability architecture remotely from Canada, using distributed systems expertise to improve telemetry reliability, performance, and cost.
Affirm seeks a Staff Software Engineer as Observability’s technical lead. You will remain hands-on while defining strategy, mentoring six engineers, and partnering with infrastructure and product teams. The work spans telemetry pipelines, log sampling, wide events, and AI-assisted development instrumentation.
Key Responsibilities:
- Own Affirm’s telemetry pipeline architecture at 200+ TB daily
- Design log sampling strategies that preserve incident signal
- Shape observability practices for agentic development and code review
- Define technical strategy and drive cross-functional projects
- Mentor engineers and establish quality and operational standards
Requirements:
- 8+ years designing and launching scalable backend systems
- Experience with Python or Kotlin and distributed systems
- Knowledge of AWS, MySQL, Flink, and Kubernetes
- Telemetry experience with OpenTelemetry, Kafka, or Terraform
- Robust communication and platform adoption experience
Bring backend architecture, observability, and technical leadership to Affirm’s remote Canada engineering organization.