Director, Software Engineering (Site Reliability Engineering)

Affirm is reinventing credit to make it more honest and friendly, giving consumers the flexibility to buy now and pay later without any hidden fees or compounding interest.

As a Director of Site Reliability Engineering, you will own execution for reliability, availability, and operational excellence across Affirms global platform. You will be accountable for ensuring that our core services consistently meet high availability and performance expectations for both consumers and external partners, while evolving our systems to scale safely and efficiently.

In this role, you will build and mature best-in-class reliability practices, including incident response, risk management, and operational lifecycle programs, embedding resilience into every stage of development. You will partner closely with Product, Security, Enterprise Risk, Legal, Compliance, and Engineering leaders to proactively identify and mitigate systemic risks across the organization.

You will hire, grow, and lead a diverse, global team of SREs, systems engineers, and full-stack engineers, fostering a culture that values learning, experimentation, and accountability. As a senior technical leader, you will balance hands‑on technical depth with strategic leadership, helping affirm move fast while maintaining the trust of our users and partners at scale.

What You’ll Do

• Set the vision and drive execution for reliability engineering at affirm.
• Own and coordinate delivery of high availability of core affirm services, to attain our service level standards and expectations with external partners.
• Iterate and maintain a best‑in‑industry global incident response & lifecycle program.
• Build software and program management structure to perform continual risk management across the entire affirm system and engineering organization.
• Run a robust development lifecycle establishing a culture for operational excellence, while experimenting and failing fast.
• Work with a wide variety of cross‑functional partners outside of engineering ranging from product, enterprise risk, security, legal and compliance.
• Hire and build a global team of SREs, system engineers, and full‑stack engineers.
• Cultivate a respectful and supportive environment for all team members that effectively demonstrates the diversity of the team.

What We Look For

• 15+ years of relevant experience in software and site reliability engineering.
• Experience leading SRE, systems engineering, and full‑stack engineering teams.
• Successful track record driving key outcomes that drive the company’s success.
• Comfortable partnering across disciplines and influencing across a wide variety of leaders.
• World‑class communicator with excellent instincts for empathetic messaging.
• Keen technical mind comfortable reading and understanding full‑stack code.
• Proven track record of establishing and growing teams, retaining talent, and comfort working with ambiguity.
• This position requires either equivalent practical experience or a Bachelor’s degree in a related field.

Base Pay Grade – T

Equity Grade – 18

Employees new to affirm typically come in at the start of the pay range. affirm focuses on providing a simple and transparent pay structure which is based on a variety of factors, including location, experience and job‑related skills.

Base pay is part of a total compensation package that may include equity rewards, monthly stipends for health, wellness and tech spending, and benefits (including 100% subsidized medical coverage, dental and vision for you and your dependents).

USA base pay range (CA, WA, NY, NJ, CT) per year: $300,000 – $360,000.

USA base pay range (all other U.S. states) per year: $267,000 – $327,000.

affirm is proud to be a remote‑first company! The majority of our roles are remote and you can work almost anywhere within the country of employment. affirmers in proximal roles have the flexibility to work remotely, but will occasionally be required to work out of their assigned affirm office. A limited number of roles remain office‑based due to the nature of their job responsibilities.

Benefits

• Health care coverage – affirm covers all premiums for all levels of coverage for you and your dependents.
• Flexible Spending Wallets – generous stipends for spending on technology, food, various lifestyle needs, and family forming expenses.
• Time off – competitive vacation and holiday schedules allowing you to take time off to rest and recharge.
• ESPP – an employee stock purchase plan enabling you to buy shares of affirm at a discount.

We believe It’s On Us to provide an inclusive interview experience for all, including people with disabilities. We are happy to provide reasonable accommodations to candidates in need of individualized support during the hiring process.

[For U.S. positions that could be performed in Los Angles or San Francisco] Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance and Los Angeles Fair Chance Initiative for Hiring Ordinance, affirm will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.

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