Senior Staff Software Engineer (Incubation) at GoFundMe

This role is designed for a heavyweight backend architect with at least 8 years of experience, specifically within the **fintech, payments, or wealth management

Work type: hybrid

Location: San Francisco, CA

Salary: $181,000 – $271,000/yr

Type: Full-time

Summary

This role is designed for a heavyweight backend architect with at least 8 years of experience, specifically within the **fintech, payments, or wealth management** sectors. The "Incubation" focus suggests you’ll be building new products from scratch, so they are looking for a leader who can navigate high levels of ambiguity and design systems that scale globally. The compensation is highly competitive ($181k–$271k+), and the position offers the rare chance to combine high-level technical challenges with a genuine mission-driven impact. While the role is based in San Francisco with a **3x/week in-office requirement**, it offers a "start-up within a company" vibe, giving you the autonomy to own a technical roadmap and lead product launches. **You might be a good fit if you:** * Have extensive experience building ledgering, digital wallets, or payment infrastructure. * Are comfortable coding in **Java/Kotlin** and working within the **AWS/Kubernetes/Kafka** ecosystem. * Enjoy "zero-to-one" engineering, where you define the architecture rather than just maintaining it. * Live in (or are willing to commute to) San Francisco three days a week.

Job Description

Want to help us help others? We’re hiring!

GoFundMe is the world’s most powerful community for good, dedicated to helping people help each other. By uniting individuals and nonprofits in one place, GoFundMe makes it easy and safe for people to ask for help and support causes—for themselves and each other. Together, our community has raised more than $40 billion since 2010.

Join us! GoFundMe is searching for a passionate and driven Senior Staff Software Engineer with a strong background in building scalable, high-performance fintech or wealth management systems. In this high-impact role, you will design and develop innovative infrastructure from the ground up to support large-scale, mission-driven fintech products that empower millions of people globally. Your work will directly contribute to building seamless, user-friendly experiences, enabling individuals to contribute to causes and make meaningful change in the world.

As a key technical leader, you'll have the opportunity to shape the architecture and direction of our systems, driving impact for both the company and the users we serve. Join us if you're excited to grow both personally and professionally while making a direct impact on GoFundMe’s products, users, and the causes that matter most.

Candidates considered for this role will be located in the San Francisco, Bay Area. There will be an in-office requirement of 3x a week.

The Job

• You’ll collaborate with a team of engineers, product management, designers and external partners to identify and implement improvements and new features for the GoFundMe fintech products.

• You’ll take ownership of the entire product development life cycle which includes architectural design, development, deployment, documentation and maintenance of new and existing backend services and tools.

• You’ll provide mentorship to junior developers, advocate for improvements to the codebase, and provide leadership to others within your team.

• You’ll own the technical roadmap for these new products, prioritizing features based on cutting-edge technology, user needs, and technical feasibility to deliver high-value solutions.

• Conduct deep technical exploration to stay ahead of industry trends, and leverage that knowledge to design systems that stand up to market demands, while pushing the boundaries of innovation.

• Define and track key performance indicators (KPIs) for your products, using data-driven insights to iterate, optimize, and enhance the overall user experience and technical performance.

• Lead the engineering efforts for product launches and own the post-launch technical strategy to ensure products scale and perform successfully in the market.

• Contribute significantly to system reliability and operational excellence by participating in on-call rotations and leading the troubleshooting and resolution of incidents.

• You are a seasoned engineer with a track record of building and shipping impactful features.

• You have 8+ years of relevant experience across various technical domains such as scalable backend systems, complex infrastructure, APIs, or distributed systems.

• You can navigate through ambiguity and assist the product team with scoping and discovery, helping to shape solutions and define clear paths forward.

• You have experience architecting services and systems using well-accepted design patterns to enable future scaling. You anticipate future use cases and make design decisions that minimize the cost of future change.

• You are skilled at leading projects from conception to completion, ensuring timely delivery by balancing technical trade-offs and business needs, while communicating progress and challenges to stakeholders, and keeping teams aligned with project goals.

• You have strong experience in analyzing, diagnosing, and preventing performance problems, with expertise in application performance monitoring and log analytics tools.

• Experience in areas such as financial transaction systems, digital wallets, ledgering, reconciliation, compliance (e.g., KYC), and payment infrastructure is a plus.

• Experience with Spring Boot, Kotlin or Java, AWS, Kafka, Kubernetes.

• Make an Impact: Be part of a mission-driven organization making a positive difference in millions of lives every year.

• Innovative Environment: Work with a diverse, passionate, and talented team in a fast-paced, forward-thinking atmosphere.

• Collaborative Team: Join a fun and collaborative team that works hard and celebrates success together.

• Competitive Benefits: Enjoy competitive pay and comprehensive healthcare benefits.

• Holistic Support: Enjoy financial assistance for things like hybrid work, family planning, along with generous parental leave, flexible time-off policies, and mental health and wellness resources to support your overall well-being.

• Growth Opportunities: Participate in learning, development, and recognition programs to help you thrive and grow.

• Commitment to DEI: Contribute to diversity, equity, and inclusion through ongoing initiatives and employee resource groups.

• Community Engagement: Make a difference through our volunteering program.

GoFundMe is proud to be an equal opportunity employer that actively pursues candidates of diverse backgrounds and experiences. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, ethnicity, nationality or national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity or expression, pregnancy status, marital status, age, medical condition, mental or physical disability, or military or veteran status.

The annual U.S. salary range for this full-time position is $181,000 - $271,000.The company also offers equity and other benefits to employees, including healthcare, dental, vision, life insurance and 401(k) saving program. In addition to this wage, there are geolocation differentials that will increase pay depending on the work location. Additionally pay may vary depending on other factors including skills, experience, education, or training. Your recruiter can share more about the specific total compensation packagebased on your location during the hiring process.

If you require a reasonable accommodation to complete a job application or a job interview or to otherwise participate in the hiring process, please contact us at [accommodationrequests@gofundme.com](mailto:accommodationrequests@gofundme.com).

Global Data Privacy Notice for Job Candidates and Applicants:

Depending on your location, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) or certain US privacy laws may regulate the way we manage the data of job applicants. Our full notice outlining how data will be processed as part of the application procedure for applicable locations is available [here](https://www.gofundme.com/c/personal-privacy-notice-for-classy-and-gofundme). By submitting your application, you are agreeing to our use and processing of your data as required.

Learn more about GoFundMe:

We’re proud to partner with [GoFundMe.org](https://www.gofundme.org/), an independent public charity, to extend the reach and impact of our generous community, while helping drive critical social change. You can learn more about GoFundMe.org’s activities and impact in their [FY ‘24 annual report](https://www.gofundme.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/GoFundMe.org-FY24-Annual-Report.pdf).

Our[ annual “Year in Help” report ](https://www.gofundme.com/c/gofundme-2024-year-in-help)reflects our community’s impact in advancing our mission of helping people help each other.

For recent company news and announcements, visit our [Newsroom](https://www.gofundme.com/c/newsroom).

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