Staff- Software Engineer - Digital Pyts

American Express•Phoenix, AZ

About The Position

American Express is seeking an experienced Staff Software Engineer for its Digital Payments Engineering team, which develops products and platforms for American Express customers. The role focuses on mobile payment solutions used by cardholders worldwide and on creating interactive experiences across the consumer purchase journey, including new payment vehicles, payment partnerships, and web experiences. The engineer will help define architecture for emerging payment experiences, including next-generation wallet capabilities and agentic/digital commerce. The Staff Software Engineer leads the design and implementation of scalable software solutions, provides technical leadership and mentorship, oversees platform integration and maintenance, conducts design reviews, collaborates with cross-functional teams, and improves development processes. The role partners with product, business, Digital Payments, and dependent technology organizations to align technology with business objectives and resolve complex integration and platform dependencies. The position supports high-quality, reliable, efficient software systems and engineering excellence across teams.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or comparable experience.
Deep knowledge of distributed and multi-tiered systems, algorithms, and NoSQL and relational databases.
Strong knowledge of designing and operating highly available, fault-tolerant, scalable systems at global enterprise scale.
Strong knowledge of enterprise-grade APIs and modern integration patterns, including REST and JSON.
Knowledge of tools and engineering practices for planning, designing, building, testing, deploying, observing, and maintaining enterprise applications.
Strong understanding of modern software architecture, cloud platforms, CI/CD, observability, resiliency, security, and automated testing.
Ability to assess architectural tradeoffs and make technical decisions involving performance, scalability, reliability, security, maintainability, and cost.
Significant software engineering experience, including designing and implementing large-scale distributed systems.
Demonstrated technical leadership across multiple engineering teams and complex technology domains.
Experience establishing architecture and technical direction for business-critical platforms and influencing engineering decisions across organizational boundaries.
Experience with modern programming languages, software development methodologies, frameworks, engineering tools, and SDLC practices.
Experience designing and operating cloud-based platforms and modern distributed architectures.
Experience leading modernization and engineering-excellence initiatives in complex technology environments.
Demonstrated experience mentoring Senior Engineers and developing technical talent.
Strong communication skills, including the ability to explain complex technical concepts and architectural decisions to engineering, product, business, and senior technology stakeholders.

Nice To Haves

Advanced degree preferred.
Experience building high-volume, highly available payments, financial services, digital commerce, or similarly regulated transaction-processing platforms.
Experience with digital wallets, tokenization, payment networks, mobile payments, authentication, or partner integrations.
Experience modernizing large-scale platforms while maintaining availability and business continuity.
Experience defining reusable architecture patterns and engineering standards across multiple teams.

Responsibilities

Lead, mentor, and coach Senior Software Engineers and teams, fostering excellence, professional growth, and knowledge sharing.
Direct the design and implementation of scalable software solutions, ensuring robust architecture, code quality, and alignment with business objectives.
Provide technical mentorship to Software Engineers at various levels on coding practices, design patterns, and software development methodologies.
Oversee integration and maintenance of platform components to support performance, reliability, and scalability.
Conduct design reviews and code inspections, providing feedback to uphold coding standards and architectural integrity.
Collaborate with cross-functional teams to define technical requirements, develop implementation strategies, and integrate complex software projects.
Monitor and optimize development processes, including adherence to project schedules, sprint goals, and continuous integration and deployment practices.
Ensure code health and quality across the portfolio, including source control management, functional testing, and CI/CD tool integration.
Collaborate with product and business teams to align technology initiatives with business objectives.
Partner across Digital Payments and dependent technology organizations to resolve complex integration and platform dependencies.
Help define architecture for emerging payment experiences, including next-generation wallet capabilities and agentic/digital commerce.