Senior Software Engineer, Backend - Platform (Payment Rails)

Role overview

Join Coinbase’s Payment Rails team in the Platform organization as a Senior Software Engineer (Backend). You’ll build the foundational, low-latency backend infrastructure that powers how money moves at Coinbase—supporting fiat deposits, withdrawals, and transfers across payment methods, gateways, and banking integrations.

Responsibilities

• 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 (architecture through production), delivering high-quality, well-tested, correct, auditable, and reliable code for a real-time financial environment.
• Partner cross-functionally with Product, Design, Compliance, and Finance to translate complex payment requirements into robust technical solutions balancing speed, safety, and regulatory compliance.
• Drive technical vision and execution with engineering and product leadership by shaping the long-term roadmap for Payment Rails (improving reliability, reducing latency, and scaling systems).
• Integrate with internal and external partners, including banking systems and payment processors, as well as Coinbase teams (e.g., FinHub, Ledger, Risk).
• Promote engineering excellence through mentoring, design reviews, and building an inclusive, high-performing 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 designing and operating production services at scale, including monitoring, alerting, incident response, and performance optimization.
• Deep knowledge of distributed systems, APIs, and system design (service-oriented architecture; ability to decompose complex problems).
• Ability to collaborate cross-functionally and drive alignment with technical and non-technical stakeholders.

Nice-to-haves / signals

• Passion for crypto and blockchain’s role in updating the financial system.