Senior Software Engineer, Backend - Platform (Payment Rails)

Role overview

Senior Software Engineer, Backend — Platform (Payment Rails) at Coinbase. You’ll join the Payment Rails team within the Platform organization to build low-latency, high-throughput backend services that power deposits, withdrawals, and transfers across payment methods and banking integrations.

What you’ll be doing

• Design and build scalable payment systems processing millions of transactions daily, including APIs, services, and integrations for deposits, withdrawals, and fund transfers.
• Own backend services end-to-end, from architecture through production, delivering high-quality, well-tested, correct, auditable, and reliable systems in a real-time financial environment.
• Partner cross-functionally with Product, Design, Compliance, and Finance to translate payment requirements into technical solutions balancing speed, safety, and regulatory compliance.
• Drive technical vision and execution, shaping the long-term roadmap for Payment Rails (e.g., improving reliability, reducing latency, scaling).
• Integrate with internal and external partners, including banking systems, payment processors, and Coinbase teams (e.g., FinHub, Ledger, Risk).
• Support engineering excellence by mentoring teammates and participating in design reviews to build a strong engineering culture.

Requirements

• 5+ years of backend software engineering experience.
• Demonstrated experience building high-volume, low-latency distributed systems.
• Strong coding skills in Go (preferred) or similar languages.
• Solid understanding of relational databases, transactions, and data consistency.
• Experience operating production services at scale, including monitoring, alerting, incident response, and performance optimization.
• Deep understanding of distributed systems, APIs, and system design, with ability to decompose problems into service-oriented architectures.
• Proven collaboration skills across technical and non-technical stakeholders.

Nice to haves

• Passion for building an open financial system using crypto/blockchain technology.