Senior Staff Software Engineer – Network Enablement (SF and NYC)

Engineering

San Francisco

Full-time

We build simple yet innovative consumer products and developer APIs that shape how everybody interacts with money and the financial system.

The Network Enablement team’s mission is to expand Plaid’s network effects by making data sharing safer, richer, and more valuable for every participant in the ecosystem. We build Plaid’s Consent & Insights Platform: the backbone that lets consumers control how their financial data flows, enables banks and fintechs to meet evolving regulations, and unlocks network‑wide insights that make finance more open and inclusive.

As a Senior Staff Software Engineer at Plaid, you will drive the technical vision and execution for our consent management and network insights platforms. You'll architect and scale highly reliable backend services that model consent, tokenize accounts, and expose APIs used billions of times each year by fintechs, banks, and end users.

You will lead the design and implementation of AI/ML systems that power fraud detection, risk management, and bank account primacy insights across our network. In this role, you'll work closely with Data, Product, Legal, Security, and external standards bodies to ensure Plaid not only builds innovative solutions but also sets industry benchmarks for trust and intelligence.

As a senior technical leader, you'll shape engineering culture by driving design excellence, stewarding a blameless on-call practice, and mentoring senior engineers. Your work will influence both the architecture of Plaid's core systems and the next generation of technical leadership within the company.

Responsibilities

Owning problems end‑to‑end, from ambiguous regulatory text to a production system serving millions.
Balancing rapid product iteration with platform thinking—building abstractions that scale from a single fintech to tier‑1 banks.
Working at the intersection of backend scale, data infrastructure, and ML, where decisions ripple through Plaid’s entire network.
Seeing your designs shape emerging open‑finance standards and industry best practices.
Being the advocate of AI/ML in engineer daily work and product roadmap.

Qualifications

10 + years designing distributed systems
3 + years leading multiple teams
Deep proficiency in Golang (or similar), Kafka, SQL + NoSQL stores, Feature Stores, ML training/serving pipelines, and cloud‑native architectures
Track record of building data‑intensive products (ETL, streaming, ML‑serving)
Strong product sense; comfortable partnering directly with PMs, Counsel, and external regulators
Passion for mentoring and creating inclusive, high‑agency teams

$226,800.00 - $400,000.00 per year

The target base salary for this position ranges from $226,800/year to $400,000/year in Zone 1. The target base salary will vary based on the job's location.

Our geographic zones are as follows:

Zone 1 - New York City and San Francisco Bay Area

Zone 2 - Los Angeles, Seattle, Washington D.C.

Zone 3 - Austin, Boston, Denver, Houston, Portland, Sacramento, San Diego

Zone 4 - Raleigh-Durham and all other US cities

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.

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