Staff Software Engineer, Plaid
Europe
Data network powering the tools millions of people rely on to live a healthier financial life
Open for applications
Data network powering the tools millions of people rely on to live a healthier financial life
1001+ employees
Open for applications
1001+ employees
Company mission
To unlock financial freedom for everyone.
Role
Who you are
- 8+ years of software engineering experience, including operating as a technical lead on a product engineering team
- Strong programming skills in Go, Python, or similar backend languages
- Experience operating and scaling high-availability systems (four 9s) in production—understands the reliability and correctness bar required for critical infrastructure
- Demonstrated track record of effective delegation—has scaled their impact by enabling senior engineers to own technical direction, not by doing everything themselves
- Strong product engineering instinct—can take a product strategy and translate it into a crisp engineering roadmap with clear scoping, sequencing, and tradeoffs
- Experience operating and scaling high-availability systems in production
- [Nice to have] Payments domain experience—has worked in payments infrastructure, processing, or a related domain
- [Nice to have] Experience working across time zones with distributed engineering teams
- [Nice to have] Fintech or financial infrastructure experience beyond payments (e.g., credit, lending, identity)
- [Nice to have] Familiarity with open banking APIs and bank connectivity patterns
- 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!
What the job involves
- This team operates at the intersection of distributed systems, financial infrastructure, and consumer UX. We solve hard problems in payments reliability, data quality, regulatory complexity, and cross-market expansion—enabling fintechs to launch in new countries with minimal additional engineering effort
- We are a high-impact, cross-functional engineering team working closely with US platform teams, GTM, compliance, and operations to make Plaid the default open banking layer for global fintechs operating in Europe
- You will serve as the technical leader for Plaid's Europe engineering team, setting direction across a broad product surface area while staying hands-on in the codebase
- You'll partner closely with the Engineering Manager and PM to turn product strategy into executable roadmaps, and maintain a strong connection to US platform teams to keep Europe aligned with company-wide engineering investments
- Set technical direction across Europe's product surface area, translating product strategy into clear engineering roadmaps with crisp scoping, sequencing, and tradeoffs
- Stay hands-on—owning high-leverage projects, spiking and prototyping to de-risk, or going deep on the hardest parts of projects others own, depending on the quarter
- Own technical excellence for the team—setting and holding a high bar through design reviews, architectural decisions, and code quality
- Partner closely with the EM and PM to identify opportunities, make tradeoffs, and keep the team focused on the highest-leverage work
- Maintain a strong connection to US engineering and platform teams, ensuring Europe's requirements shape platform decisions and the team leverages shared infrastructure rather than building in isolation
Salary benchmarks
Our take
Plaid builds infrastructure that allows consumers to interact with their bank account on the web through a number of third-party applications, like Venmo, Robinhood, Coinbase, Acorns and LendingClub.
Plaid has integrated with over 12,000 financial institutions in the US, Canada, the UK and Europe. And about a quarter of people living in North America with bank accounts have linked with Plaid through at least one of the hundreds of apps that leverage Plaid’s application program interfaces (APIs).
The platform allows companies to create financial services applications without having to hire their own team of engineers to build out a tool that connects apps to its users’ bank accounts. This is very valuable in a world where there are increasing number of fintechs, so the demand for Plaid's services are only going to grow.
Steph
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
Company
Funding (last 2 of 6 rounds)
Apr 2025
$575m
LATE VC
Apr 2021
$425m
SERIES D
Total funding: $1.3bn
Company benefits
- Vibrant offices in SF, NYC, and Raleigh-Durham—with catered meals, happy hours, and clubs to keep you connected
- Competitive pay, comprehensive health benefits, and support for fertility, mental health, and parental leave
- Lifestyle perks including home office stipends, daycare support, and commuting benefits like CitiBike and Lyft
Company HQ
SoMa, San Francisco, CA
Leadership
Zach Perret
(Co-Founder & CEO)Previously, Zach was a Consultant at Bain and a Research Fellow and Trustee at Duke before co-founding Plaid ion 2012.
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