Staff Software Engineer - Digital Platform

Western Union•Austin, TX

1d•$135,000 - $160,000•Hybrid

About The Position

The Staff Software Engineer will lead the design and delivery of scalable, cloud-native microservices powering Western Union’s digital platform. This hands-on technical expert and service owner partners with distributed engineering teams to support reliability, performance, and architectural excellence. The role develops and improves software, builds applications and internal tools using AI coding agents, helps resolve application issues, reviews designs and code, maintains service quality and engineering metrics, and coaches junior engineers. The engineer works independently on complex projects and assesses business needs to deliver effective solutions aligned with emerging technology standards. This position is based in Austin, Texas, and follows a hybrid work arrangement, with an expectation to work from the office at least three days a week. Applicants must be authorized to work in the United States on a full-time basis; Western Union will not sponsor work visas for this role. The annual base salary range is $135,000–$160,000, with total on-target compensation also including short-term incentives. Actual salaries vary based on qualifications, skills, and competencies. Applicants are required to take assessments as part of the application process.

Requirements

BS in Computer Science or a related field with 5+ years of professional experience, or an MS with 5+ years of experience; equivalent work experience may substitute for a degree.
2+ years of demonstrated experience with modern programming languages and frameworks, including Java Spring Boot, DynamoDB/Postgres, Kafka, Redis, or Apache Camel, and standard design patterns for microservices.
2+ years of hands-on technical leadership experience designing and implementing large-scale microservices.
2+ years of experience with agile development methodologies, Test Driven Development (TDD), and Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery (CI/CD).
1+ year of experience with architecture design concepts and techniques, and the ability to communicate and evangelize those concepts to a broad-based team.
1+ year of hands-on experience building microservices-based architecture and platforms developed and deployed at scale.
1+ year of hands-on experience building enterprise-scale APIs used by web and mobile applications.
1+ year of experience with AWS cloud-based architecture design and implementation.
6 months of hands-on experience using AI coding agents to build or accelerate end-to-end software delivery.
Currently authorized to work in the United States on a full-time basis; visa sponsorship is not available.

Nice To Haves

Experience in the FinTech industry.
Experience building external customer-facing applications with open-source technologies and understanding of the front-end technology stack.

Responsibilities

Develop and implement new software, and maintain and improve existing software.
Implement software functionality with a focus on code optimization and organization.
Build applications, workflow automations, internal tools, and basic agents using AI coding agents within product and platform areas.
Recommend improvements to existing software programs.
Troubleshoot application issues and coordinate resolution with operations, functional, and technical teams.
Serve as a service lead for a development team working across a geographically distributed structure.
Review designs and code from different scrum teams and ensure service-level standards are enforced.
Maintain quality and engineering metrics for assigned microservices as their service owner.
Coach junior engineers on the team.
Work independently on complex projects.
Assess business needs and provide creative, effective solutions that conform to emerging technology standards.
Apply strong decision-making, communication, and collaboration skills, along with computer science fundamentals, data structures, algorithms, object-oriented programming, and object-oriented analysis and design.