# Staff Software Engineer, Card Issuing and Payments

**Company:** [Stripe](https://hotfix.jobs/companies/stripe)
**Location:** New York, NY, Seattle, WA, San Francisco, CA
**Role:** Backend Engineering
**Experience:** 10+ years
**Skills:** Backend Services, APIs, Distributed Systems, Real-Time Processing, Event-Driven Architecture, Financial Systems, Card Network Protocols, Visa, Mastercard, Kyc, Kyb, System Design, Technical Roadmaps, Production Operations
**Posted:** 2026-09-03

> Leads technical strategy and large-scale backend systems for card issuing and payments, including authorization, spending controls, and financial correctness. Requires 10+ years of software engineering experience, staff-level cross-team influence, strong API design, and expertise in reliable distributed systems.

## Job Description

## Responsibilities
- 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 authorization flows, spending controls, cardholder management, card program configuration, and other critical systems.
- Lead infrastructure investments supporting geographic expansion, new card program types, and platform extensibility.
- Collaborate with product, design, and cross-functional teams across Issuing, Authorization, Clearing and Settlement, and Balances.
- Make build-versus-reuse decisions and create technical roadmaps balancing near-term delivery with long-term platform health.
- Advise engineering and product leadership on technical trade-offs and business implications.
- Drive engineering standards, tooling improvements, and operational rigor.
- Mentor senior engineers and support technical leadership development.
- Scope, design, build, and maintain APIs, services, and large-scale systems handling billions of money movement requests.
- Debug and resolve critical production issues across services and stack layers.
- Lead cross-functional engineering projects from requirements and architecture through delivery and post-launch iteration.

## Requirements
- 10+ years of industry software engineering experience, with demonstrated staff-level impact across multiple teams or systems.
- Experience designing and shipping large-scale user-facing products with highly available, financially correct distributed backend systems.
- Strong API design skills and the ability to create developer-friendly interfaces for complex financial and regulatory requirements.
- Ability to influence technical direction and align multiple teams without direct authority.
- Excellent written and verbal communication with technical and non-technical audiences.
- High ownership and comfort defining ambiguous problems and solutions.

## Nice-to-haves
- Experience with real-time transaction processing systems requiring strict latency and correctness, including authorizations, payments, ledgering, or settlement.
- Familiarity with card network protocols, BIN sponsorship models, or issuing bank integrations such as Visa or Mastercard.
- Experience designing systems for regulated financial services, including compliance, audit trails, financial controls, KYC, or KYB.
- Background in embedded finance, card-as-a-service, or Banking-as-a-Service platforms.
- Experience with high-volume event-driven architectures and their reliability and consistency trade-offs.
- Experience mentoring senior engineers and contributing to engineering hiring and culture.

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