Senior Software Engineer, backend

Responsibilities

• Build and operate the control plane for large-scale distributed SQL databases, automating provisioning, failover, backups, and upgrades.
• Design and execute reliability-focused schema and data migrations across multi-tenant database clusters with zero downtime.
• Own the Kubernetes networking stack connecting services to storage, including connection proxies such as ProxySQL.
• Define and deliver quarterly team goals while leading engineers through open-ended technical problems.
• Collaborate with product management, design, analytics, and stakeholders on product decisions, constraints, risks, and trade-offs.
• Monitor operational metrics, support availability and on-call efforts, and address project, process, technology, and business issues.
• Establish code review and design standards and share expertise through writing and technical talks.
• Provide feedback and guidance to support talent development.

Requirements

• 5+ years of experience as a software engineer.
• Experience designing, developing, and launching backend systems at scale using technologies such as Python, Kotlin, AWS, MySQL, Terraform, and Kubernetes.
• Hands-on experience with large-scale production database deployments and distributed database architecture.
• Expertise with database technologies such as MySQL, TiDB, Postgres, Spanner, Vitess, or CockroachDB.
• Strong understanding of data modeling, SQL tuning, performance optimization, benchmarking, load testing, and capacity planning.
• Familiarity with connection poolers and proxies such as ProxySQL, RDS Proxy, PgBouncer, or PgDog.
• Experience building database control-plane or automation tooling for provisioning, failover, upgrades, and schema migrations, ideally on Kubernetes.
• Experience executing zero-downtime migrations and major production database upgrades, including building repeatable CLI tooling or runbooks.
• Understanding of Kubernetes networking, service discovery, and TLS for debugging service-to-database connection and failover problems.
• Ability to define technical plans, design extensible systems, write high-quality code, and make significant changes safely in large codebases.
• Strong ownership, communication, collaboration, and feedback-seeking skills.
• Bachelor’s degree in a related field or equivalent practical experience.

Benefits

• Remote-first work arrangement for candidates residing in Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Prince Edward Island, or Saskatchewan, with occasional in-person work and an in-person onboarding experience.
• 100% subsidized medical, dental, and vision coverage for employees and dependents.
• Monthly technology, health, and wellness spending stipends.
• Flexible time off and generous holiday calendars.
• Employee stock purchase plan allowing employees to buy Affirm stock at a discount.
• Inclusive interview accommodations for candidates with disabilities.