Backend Software Engineer, Lyft
Payments
CA$108-135k
More information about location
3+ days a week in office
Ride sharing company
Job no longer available
Ride sharing company
1001+ employees
Job no longer available
CA$108-135k
More information about location
3+ days a week in office
1001+ employees
Company mission
To improve people’s lives with the world’s best transportation.
Role
Who you are
- Strong foundation in computer science fundamentals including data structures, algorithms, and distributed systems design
- Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical field (or equivalent practical experience)
- 2+ years of professional experience building and maintaining scalable backend systems, services, and APIs in a production environment
- Proficiency in Python and/or Go (Golang) preferred; experience working with service-oriented architecture and writing clean, efficient, and testable code
- Hands-on experience with databases (SQL/NoSQL), cloud infrastructure (e.g., AWS or GCP), and asynchronous processing at scale in a CI/CD-driven environment
What the job involves
- Lyft is looking for experienced backend software engineers to join our Payment engineering team
- The payments team is responsible for ensuring that all Lyft products are able to reliably and cost-effectively process payments, both, pay-ins and pay-outs
- This means processing tens of billions of dollars in customer payments and driver payouts every year
- The team also builds platform capabilities to support innovative payment products, some of the recent ones include Pay with Points from reward programs, billing platform, Lyft Cash, Lyft Direct, Subscriptions and several others
- Further, the team manages relationships with our 3rd party payment processors, co-brand partners and gift card program
- Our codebase encompasses millions of lines of code written by following the best development practices, careful code architecture, and an organization around rapid releases
- We also follow all modern design patterns and coding standards, as well as rely on third-party libraries and contribute back to the community
- Design, develop, and maintain scalable backend services that power Lyft’s payment systems, ensuring reliable and cost-effective processing of customer payments and driver payouts
- Own features end-to-end, from technical design through development, testing, deployment, and ongoing support, with a focus on performance, correctness, and high availability
- Collaborate cross-functionally with product, design, and other engineering teams to deliver innovative payment products like Lyft Cash, Subscriptions, Pay with Points, and Lyft Direct
- Integrate and manage 3rd-party partnerships with payment processors and financial institutions, optimizing for reliability, compliance, and cost-efficiency
- Uphold engineering best practices, contribute to technical architecture, and mentor peers to foster a high-quality codebase and a culture of continuous improvement
Application process
- Applications for this position will be accepted until September 26, 2025. Lyft reserves the right to close the application process early or extend the deadline at its discretion
Our take
Lyft has aimed for consistent growth, making sure to pitch itself as a more reliable and friendly ride-sharing option than its main competitor, Uber. Uber has a greater market share and operates globally, but Lyft hopes to compete by its focus on ride-sharing over Uber's more diversified business approach and as a more rider-friendly and greener alternative to Uber.
Operating only in the USA and Canada, Lyft is in a position of being less affected by global events than Uber but also more vulnerable to local conditions. As an example, while it doesn't face the regulatory hurdles around employment rights that Uber does, it is unable to balance out the cost of the unusually expensive US auto insurance across its operations.
In 2022, Lyft acquired PBSC Urban Solutions, a bike-share equipment and technology supplier, allowing Lyft to compete in new verticals and reaffirming its commitment to green transportation. It has also trialled and launched Lyft Assisted, where drivers help passengers from their door into the car to get to medical appointments. These developments chime well with Lyft's unique selling point as a friendlier and more environmentally aware ride-sharing app, whilst the acquisition of European competitor Freenow could add 6 million new riders to its platform in 2026.
Steph
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
-2% employee growth in 12 months
Company
Funding (last 2 of 14 rounds)
Jun 2018
$600m
LATE VC
Mar 2018
$200m
LATE VC
Total funding: $4.9bn
Company benefits
- Great medical, dental, and vision insurance options
- Mental health benefits
- In addition to 12 observed holidays, salaried team members have unlimited paid time off, hourly team members have 15 days paid time off
- 401(k) plan to help save for your future
- 18 weeks of paid parental leave. Biological, adoptive, and foster parents are all eligible
- Pre-tax commuter benefits
- Lyft Pink - Lyft team members get an exclusive opportunity to test new benefits of our Ridership Program
- Family building benefits
- Lyft Pink - Lyft team members get an exclusive opportunity to test new benefits of our Ridership Program
Company HQ
China Basin, San Francisco, CA
Leadership
John Zimmer
(Co-Founder)Originally an Analyst at Lehman Brothers, Zimmer then founded Zimride which was a private ridesharing company that pivoted into Lyft.
Logan Green
(Co-Founder)Founded Zimride, a private ridesharing company which later pivoted into Lyft.
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