Staff Software Engineer, Startup Products

at Stripe

📍 United States
📍 Atlanta, United States
📍 Chicago, United States
📍 New York City, United States
📍 South San Francisco, United States
📍 Seattle, United States

USD 224,000-336,000 per year

SENIOR

✅ Remote ✅ On-site

Tech Stack
Tag name is followed by "@" symbol and proficiency level value. About proficiency levels:

1-2 — basic awareness. Minimal hands-on experience, and a rudimentary understanding of the technology's purpose;

3-6 — daily use. Comfortable and regular usage, capable of handling common tasks and challenges related to the technology;

7-9 — you are an expert, you can teach others, you know all the pitfalls and tricks;

10 — exceptional knowledge, comprehensive understanding, and adeptness in all aspects of the technology, including advanced problem-solving. Think twice before claiming or demanding such level.

AI @ 4 API @ 4 Communication @ 6 Compliance @ 4 Mentoring @ 7 Ruby @ 4 TypeScript @ 4

Details

Stripe is a financial infrastructure platform for businesses. The Startup Products team builds Stripe Atlas and other products that help founders start and run companies from anywhere in the world. The team works on global company formation, legal and financial workflows, AI-enabled operations, and related products.

As a Staff Software Engineer, you will shape the team’s technical strategy while leading major 0→1 products from early exploration through launch and iteration. You will turn ambiguous opportunities into clear technical plans, align teams around those plans, and remain hands-on throughout execution. You will work across product surfaces, services, APIs, data models, and integrations with internal and external systems, partnering with Product, Design, Legal, Data, Operations, and engineering teams across Stripe.

Responsibilities

Define and drive technical strategy across Startup Products, connecting near-term product delivery to a cohesive, durable engineering vision.
Lead large, ambiguous 0→1 initiatives from problem definition and architecture through implementation, safe launch, and iteration.
Design, build, and maintain polished user experiences, reliable backend services, APIs, and systems.
Identify technical risks, dependencies, and foundational investments early, creating incremental plans that de-risk the roadmap and accelerate future work.
Partner with engineering teams across Stripe, building alignment and influencing their roadmaps and priorities when Startup Products depends on shared capabilities.
Work directly with founders to understand their needs and translate complex legal, financial, and operational workflows into intuitive products.
Raise the team’s engineering bar through clear standards, strong documentation, mentoring, and constructive technical feedback.
Advise product and engineering leadership on emerging opportunities, technical constraints, and investments needed to support the team’s long-term ambitions.

Requirements

10+ years of software engineering experience, with a track record of owning large, ambiguous systems end-to-end.
Demonstrated experience defining and delivering large, ambiguous software initiatives from early product and technical exploration through production launch.
Strong full-stack engineering skills, including experience building reliable backend services and polished user-facing product experiences.
Ability to create technical direction and align teams with different priorities and constraints without relying on direct authority.
Product-minded engineering judgment, with a deep commitment to understanding users and delivering meaningful outcomes for them and the business.
Excellent written and verbal communication, with the ability to move between strategic discussions and detailed technical decisions.
A high quality bar and attention to detail across product experience, implementation, reliability, and operational readiness.

Preferred Qualifications

Experience with early-stage startups and a deep understanding of the challenges founders face globally.
Experience building 0→1 products and taking them from concept through launch and iteration.
Experience building products involving legal, financial, compliance, or other complex and high-trust workflows.
Experience building AI-powered product experiences or platforms that safely automate consequential user tasks.
Experience with Ruby and/or TypeScript. Strong engineering fundamentals and the ability to learn are valued more than expertise in a particular language or framework.