Lead Backend Software Engineer for Risk Systems

Are you ready to push your limits and transform the financial landscape? At Coinbase, our mission is to enhance economic freedom across the globe. This ambitious goal drives us every day as we develop the next-generation on-chain platform that shapes the future of finance.

We are on the lookout for a passionate and driven individual who believes in the power of cryptocurrency and blockchain technology to revolutionize the financial system. If you're eager to leave an impact on the world, thrive under pressure, work with a talented team, and actively seek feedback to grow, you might be the perfect fit for us.

Our work culture is challenging but rewarding. If you're excited about the opportunity to build the future alongside exceptional colleagues, this is the place for you.

The Risk Engineering Platform team is dedicated to safeguarding our platform and millions of users against fraud and financial risks. We create flexible, scalable, and customizable systems that can detect and prevent fraud in real-time and scheduled workflows. Our aim is to support business growth by effectively managing financial risks, ensuring an optimal user experience.

The Role

As a Lead Backend Software Engineer on the Risk Engineering team, you will provide essential technical leadership, guiding projects from concept to deployment and shaping our risk detection and mitigation systems architecture. Your contributions will have a direct impact on millions of users and billions in transaction volume.

Key Responsibilities

• Technical Leadership & Delivery: Create, review, and approve technical design documents for intricate features and systems.
• Lead the end-to-end delivery of technical projects, ensuring successful implementation, deployment, and monitoring.
• Design and build new systems or major features, utilizing your expert judgment.
• Oversee projects of varying sizes and complexities from inception to completion.
• Facilitate team practices such as code reviews and incident responses.
• Translate high-level business requirements into actionable architectures.

System Architecture & Quality:

• Enhance code quality and address technical debt across the team's codebases.
• Identify and employ scalable solutions beneficial to the team.
• Develop systems or features that improve the team's capability to deliver high-quality work.
• Tackle significant technical debt and quality issues while preserving existing systems.
• Lead troubleshooting, bug triaging, and performance enhancement initiatives.
• Ensure solutions are functional for both internal and external teams.

Mentorship & Knowledge Sharing:

• Coach and mentor junior engineers to foster their development.
• Disseminate your knowledge to amplify the team's overall impact.
• Enhance the efficiency of fellow engineers through best practices.
• Take the initiative on tasks that help the team increase its productivity.
• Work collaboratively with Engineering Managers and Product Managers to prioritize effectively.

What We Are Looking For:

Required Qualifications:

• 5+ years of experience in software engineering, delivering complex systems.
• Proven ability to lead technical projects and provide mentorship.
• Deep proficiency in at least one backend language (Go, Java, Python, Ruby).
• Experience building and scaling distributed systems in production environments.
• Strong understanding of system design patterns and trade-offs.
• Capability to clarify ambiguous requirements and drive technical decisions.
• Experience leading incident responses and conducting post-mortems.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience in risk, fraud detection, or large-scale financial systems.
• Familiarity with machine learning model deployment in production.
• Experience with real-time event processing systems (Kafka, Flink).
• Understanding of payment systems (ACH, cards, crypto) and related fraud patterns.
• Knowledge of regulatory compliance and security standards.
• A track record of enhancing team productivity through tools and process improvements.

Technical Skills:

• Expert-level proficiency in Go, Java, or Python.
• Deep understanding of microservices architecture and distributed systems.
• Experience with database optimization (PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Snowflake).
• Expertise in message queuing and event streaming technologies.
• Strong grasp of API design, RESTful services, and gRPC.

Job #: GPBE05US

Answers to crypto-related questions may be used to evaluate your on-chain experience.

Pay Transparency Notice: The target annual salary for this position ranges from $186,065 to $218,900 USD, including bonus eligibility, equity eligibility, and benefits (medical, dental, vision, and 401(k)).

Pay Transparency Notice: For locations in Canada, the target annual salary is $191,000 CAD.

Each candidate may submit a maximum of four applications within any 30-day period. We encourage you to carefully assess how your skills and interests match with Coinbase's roles before applying.

Commitment to Equal Opportunity

Coinbase is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will be considered without regard to race, color, religion, creed, gender, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, sexual orientation, or any other basis protected by law.

We are also dedicated to providing reasonable accommodations for individuals with disabilities. If you require an accommodation due to a disability during the employment process, please contact us to inform us of your needs.

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