Senior Staff Software Engineer

PayZen•San Francisco, CA

2d•Onsite

About The Position

PayZen is on a mission to bring financial health to healthcare. Our products improve both access and affordability for patients and cash flow & administrative complexity for medical providers. We are trusted by a rapidly growing number of health systems, hospitals, and physician groups and are backed by leading venture capital investors, including NEA, SignalFire, Viola Group, and 7Wire Ventures. We are looking for a Senior Staff Software Engineer to serve as the primary technical architect for PayZen's engineering organization. At this level, your impact is measured by the success of entire business lines and the long-term sustainability of our technology stack. You are not just solving today's problems — you are anticipating the engineering and compliance challenges we will face two to three years from now and building the foundation to meet them. This is a premier individual contributor role at the highest level of technical leadership. You are expected to remain hands-on — contributing to critical implementations, reviewing code and system designs at the most consequential decision points, and setting the technical standard others calibrate against. You own the consequences of your architectural decisions, not just the recommendations. You will drive AI-native development across the organization — not just for your own productivity, but to systematically redefine how the entire engineering team delivers value. You will report to the SVP of Engineering. This role is based in our San Francisco headquarters, with in-office days on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays.

Requirements

10+ years of software engineering experience in production systems at meaningful scale
4+ years operating at the Staff Engineer level or above, with demonstrated impact beyond a single team's scope
Deep expertise in designing and maintaining complex distributed systems — including async/sync design patterns, fault tolerance, and horizontal scaling — with a track record of delivering through major migrations and scaling events.
Working knowledge of application security principles and secure-by-design architectural patterns
Hands-on proficiency in at least one of: Java, Go, Python, TypeScript, or equivalent — you write and review code, not just documents
Strong command of relational and non-relational database architecture, including distributed transaction management and data-path latency trade-offs
Demonstrated ability to influence executive and cross-functional stakeholders through written communication — RFCs, design documents, and strategic technical narratives
Based in the San Francisco Bay Area