- Company Name
- Plaid
- Job Title
- Senior Staff Software Engineer, API & Developer Experience
- Job Description
-
**Job Title:** Senior Staff Software Engineer, API & Developer Experience
**Role Summary:**
Leads the design, development, and evolution of Plaid’s core API platform, ensuring scalable, high‑quality experiences for internal engineers and external developers. Provides technical direction, mentorship, and cross‑functional collaboration to deliver intuitive, reliable API services and developer tools.
**Expectations:**
- 6‑10+ years of software engineering experience with a track record of owning and scaling APIs.
- Demonstrated ability to influence engineering standards, design patterns, and versioning strategies.
- Strong communication skills to convey design rationale and developer insights to engineers, product managers, and leadership.
- Commitment to mentor and grow engineering talent, particularly in API development.
- Passion for delivering excellent developer experiences and supporting AI‑first integration use cases.
**Key Responsibilities:**
- Architect and build the next‑generation Plaid API platform, including versioning and evolution frameworks.
- Define and enforce system‑wide principles, patterns, and best practices for API development.
- Partner with product, design, and other engineering teams to ship high‑quality, user‑friendly API experiences.
- Act as technical lead for Developer Experience initiatives, including sandbox environments and AI‑centric tooling.
- Mentor engineers on API design, implementation, and maintenance.
- Advocate for developer needs across the organization, shaping roadmap and platform strategy.
**Required Skills:**
- Expertise in designing, building, and maintaining large‑scale APIs and developer platforms.
- Proficiency in modern backend languages and frameworks (e.g., Go, Java, Python, Node.js).
- Strong grasp of API versioning, authentication, rate limiting, and observability.
- Experience with API documentation, SDK generation, and integration tooling.
- Excellent written and verbal communication; ability to articulate complex technical concepts clearly.
- Empathy for developers and a history of delivering “lovable” developer experiences.
**Required Education & Certifications:**
- Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related technical field (or equivalent practical experience).
- Advanced degree or relevant certifications (e.g., AWS, Azure, Google Cloud) are a plus but not mandatory.
San francisco, United states
Hybrid
Senior
28-09-2025