Staff Software Engineer - Payments Transfer
Plaid
Software Engineering
San Francisco, CA, USA
USD 202,800-330k / year + Equity
Posted on Nov 26, 2025
We believe that the way people interact with their finances will drastically improve in the next few years. We’re dedicated to empowering this transformation by building the tools and experiences that thousands of developers use to create their own products. Plaid powers the tools millions of people rely on to live a healthier financial life. We work with thousands of companies like Venmo, SoFi, several of the Fortune 500, and many of the largest banks to make it easy for people to connect their financial accounts to the apps and services they want to use. Plaid’s network covers 12,000 financial institutions across the US, Canada, UK and Europe. Founded in 2013, the company is headquartered in San Francisco with offices in New York, Washington D.C., London and Amsterdam.
At Plaid, our mission is to build the infrastructure that makes financial services more accessible and reliable—enabling businesses and consumers to move money and manage finances with trust and scale. The Payments Transfer team is central to that mission: we build a multi-rail payment platform to move money between bank accounts for millions of people in the United States.
You will define the future architecture of our Payments Transfer systems, ensuring they are reliable, scalable, and built for long-term growth. Additionally, you will execute against an ambitious product roadmap while partnering closely with product and cross-functional teams.
Responsibilities
- Lead the technical direction of the transfer system including transfer customer onboarding, billing, bookkeeping, payments processing, reconciliation systems.
- Collaborate across product, design, operations, partnership, and legal teams to make sure the technical solution meets business needs.
- Discover system quality and reliability opportunities and proactively drive improvements and technical roadmap.
- Work hands-on: write and review technical designs, write and review code, lead major technical initiatives and new feature development.
- Mentor engineers and contribute to a strong, inclusive team culture.
Requirements
- At least 3-5 years working on payments, billing, invoicing or other financial infrastructure systems.
- Proven track record of building and operating systems that process payments at scale (e.g., high throughput, high reliability, complex flows such as refunds, settlement).
- Strong proficiency in distributed system design, architecture, performance optimization, observability, reliability engineering.
- Experience setting and maintaining engineering best practices (testing, code review, continuous integration/deployment, on-call practices).
- Excellent communication: able to engage with business/product/operations stakeholders, articulate technical trade-offs, drive alignment.
- [Nice to have] Experience with modern payment rails (e.g., ACH, real-time bank payments, open banking rails) and multi-rail payments architectures
Our mission at Plaid is to unlock financial freedom for everyone. To support that mission, we seek to build a diverse team of driven individuals who care deeply about making the financial ecosystem more equitable. We recognize that strong qualifications can come from both prior work experiences and lived experiences. We encourage you to apply to a role even if your experience doesn't fully match the job description. We are always looking for team members that will bring something unique to Plaid!
Plaid is proud to be an equal opportunity employer and values diversity at our company. We do not discriminate based on race, color, national origin, ethnicity, religion or religious belief, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, gender expression, transgender status, sexual stereotypes, age, military or veteran status, disability, or other applicable legally protected characteristics. We also consider qualified applicants with criminal histories, consistent with applicable federal, state, and local laws. Plaid is committed to providing reasonable accommodations for candidates with disabilities in our recruiting process. If you need any assistance with your application or interviews due to a disability, please let us know at accommodations@plaid.com.
202800 - 330000 USD a year
The target base salary for this position ranges from $202,800/year to $330,000/year. Additional compensation in the form(s) of equity and/or commission are dependent on the position offered. Plaid provides a comprehensive benefit plan, including medical, dental, vision, and 401(k). Pay is based on factors such as (but not limited to) scope and responsibilities of the position, candidate's work experience and skillset, and location. Pay and benefits are subject to change at any time, consistent with the terms of any applicable compensation or benefit plans.