Director, Backend Engineer (Digital Payments)

Uphold • New York, NY

109d • $200,000 • Hybrid

About The Position

Uphold is a financial technology company that believes on-chain services are the future of finance. It provides modern infrastructure for on-chain payments, banking, and investments. Offering Consumer Services, Business Services, and Institutional Trading, Uphold makes pioneering financial services easy and trusted for millions of customers in more than 140 countries. Uphold strips away the complexity and lack of transparency to open up Web3 finance for everyone. We're looking for an experienced Director, Backend Engineer to join our Digital Payments team and help shape the future of our financial platform. In this role, you'll take technical ownership of core backend services that connect Uphold with global bank networks (ACH, SEPA, FPS), card networks (Visa, MasterCard), modern payment methods (Apple Pay, Google Pay) and alternative payment methods. As a senior engineer, you'll drive the design of scalable, reliable, and secure systems, mentor junior engineers, and collaborate cross-functionally with Product, DevOps, Compliance, and other engineering teams to bring impactful features to life. This is a high-impact opportunity for a seasoned backend developer to play a pivotal role in building robust systems that move millions of dollars daily and redefine how users interact with their money.

Requirements

• Bachelor's or Master's Degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or equivalent practical experience.
• 6+ years of experience in backend development with a strong track record of delivering production-grade systems.
• Deep expertise in JavaScript/TypeScript, with proficiency in modern backend frameworks.
• Strong knowledge of RESTful APIs, RPC protocols, and microservices architecture.
• Experience with event-driven systems and message brokers like Kafka, RabbitMQ, Pulsar, or NSQ.
• Advanced understanding of PostgreSQL or other relational databases and Redis.
• Familiarity with cloud-native technologies, Docker, Kubernetes, and AWS-based deployment environments.
• Commitment to security best practices, particularly for handling sensitive financial data.
• Proven experience optimizing systems for performance, scalability, and observability.
• Excellent communication skills and the ability to drive consensus in a cross-functional setting.
• Passion for mentorship and fostering a collaborative engineering culture.

Nice To Haves

• Experience in the Fintech or payments industry.
• Knowledge of Temporal.io or similar orchestration frameworks for distributed workflows.
• Familiarity with financial protocols, ISO 20022, or payment gateway integration.
• Contributions to open source or internal developer tooling.
• Experience implementing CI/CD pipelines in production environments.
• Familiarity with SOC2, PCI-DSS, or other compliance requirements in regulated environments.

Responsibilities

• Lead the design, development, and maintenance of backend services and APIs that power Uphold's global payment infrastructure.
• Architect scalable and resilient services with a strong emphasis on security, observability, and fault tolerance.
• Deeply understand the business domain and proactively identify technical solutions to drive product strategy.
• Contribute to the evolution of the team's software engineering practices and development lifecycle.
• Guide the integration with external payment networks, banking partners, and service providers.
• Own the full software development lifecycle (SDLC) from ideation to deployment and monitoring.
• Actively mentor and support junior and mid-level engineers through code reviews, pair programming, and architectural discussions.
• Participate in on-call rotations to support production systems as needed.
• Collaborate closely with stakeholders to define technical requirements and translate them into reliable solutions.

Benefits

• An amazing work environment in a company that continues to grow, driven by extraordinary and passionate people.
• An international team, in a cutting edge field, working on the most fascinating projects.
• Growth and career opportunities, and the chance to be proactive and creative.
• A flexible and enthusiastic work environment that offers you snacks, a lot of coffee and other great benefits.
• Open and transparent culture with weekly updates and informal gatherings.
• Interesting events that keep you connected with the team and celebrate our success.
• Strong company culture with values of integrity, teamwork, accountability, and excellence.
• Global collaboration opportunities across the group.
• Access to training and mentorship programs.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior
• Industry: Web Search Portals, Libraries, Archives, and Other Information Services
• Education Level: Bachelor's degree
• Number of Employees: 101-250 employees