Senior Software Engineer, Backend (Risk Platform)

Ready to be pushed beyond what you think you're capable of?

At Coinbase, our mission is to increase economic freedom in the world. It's a massive, ambitious opportunity that demands the best of us, every day, as we build the emerging onchain platform - and with it, the future global financial system.

To achieve our mission, we're seeking a very specific candidate. We want someone who is passionate about our mission and who believes in the power of crypto and blockchain technology to update the financial system. We want someone who is eager to leave their mark on the world, who relishes the pressure and privilege of working with high caliber colleagues, and who actively seeks feedback to keep leveling up. We want someone who will run towards, not away from, solving the company's hardest problems.

Our work culture is intense and isn't for everyone. But if you want to build the future alongside others who excel in their disciplines and expect the same from you, there's no better place to be.

While many roles at Coinbase are remote-first, we are not remote-only. In-person participation is required throughout the year. Team and company-wide offsites are held multiple times annually to foster collaboration, connection, and alignment. Attendance is expected and fully supported.

The Risk Engineering Platform team at Coinbase is at the forefront of protecting our platform and millions of users from fraud and financial risks. We build flexible, scalable, and customizable engineering systems to detect and prevent fraud in real-time, near-real-time, and scheduled workflows. Our mission is to foster business growth by effectively managing financial risks while maintaining the best possible user experience.
The Role

As a Senior Software Engineer on the Risk Engineering team, you will provide technical leadership for end-to-end projects while driving architectural decisions that shape our risk detection and mitigation systems. You'll manage complex projects from inception to production, mentor junior engineers, and establish technical standards that elevate the entire team's capabilities. Your work will directly impact millions of users and billions in transaction volume.

What You'll Be Doing
Technical Leadership & Delivery

• Author, review, and approve technical design documents for complex features and systems
• Provide technical leadership for the delivery of end-to-end projects including implementation, deployment, and monitoring
• Design, scope, and significantly contribute to building new systems and/or major features, applying experience-based judgment
• Manage single or multiple projects end-to-end, regardless of size or complexity
• Lead team rituals including on-call rotations, code reviews, and incident response
• Transform high-level intent and ambiguous business requirements into working architectures

System Architecture & Quality

• Proactively improve code quality and address technical debt across the team's code bases
• Identify, propose, and implement scalable solutions that can be leveraged across the team
• Build systems or features that accelerate the team's ability to deliver high-quality work
• Address almost all high-impact debt and quality problems while maintaining existing systems
• Lead the team's troubleshooting, bug triaging, and performance/scalability improvements
• Ensure solutions are workable for teams inside and outside your function

Mentorship & Knowledge Sharing

• Support, coach, and mentor junior engineers within your team
• Share your knowledge and mastery with others, magnifying the impact of your abilities
• Make other engineers around me more efficient through guidance and best practices
• Take ownership of unowned or undesirable work that enables the team to move faster
• Work with EMs and PMs to champion prioritization

What We Look For In You
Required Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience in software engineering with a track record of delivering complex systems
• Demonstrated ability to lead technical projects and mentor other engineers
• Deep expertise in at least one backend language (Go, Java, Python, Ruby)
• Experience building and scaling distributed systems in production
• Strong understanding of system design, architecture patterns, and trade-offs
• Proven ability to work with ambiguous requirements and drive technical clarity
• Experience leading incident response and conducting post-mortems

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with risk, fraud detection, or financial systems at scale
• Knowledge of machine learning models in production environments
• Experience with real-time event processing and streaming architectures (Kafka, Flink)
• Understanding of payment systems (ACH, cards, crypto) and associated fraud patterns
• Experience with regulatory compliance and security requirements
• Track record of improving team productivity through tooling and process improvements

Technical Skills
Backend Engineers Should Have

• Expert-level proficiency in Go, Java, or Python
• Deep understanding of microservices architecture and distributed systems
• Experience with database optimization (PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Snowflake)
• Expertise in message queuing and event streaming systems
• Strong understanding of API design, RESTful services, and gRPC

Job #: GPBE05US

*Answers to crypto-related questions may be used to evaluate your onchain experience

#LI-Remote

Pay Transparency Notice: Depending on your work location, the target annual base salary for this position can range as detailed below. Full time offers from Coinbase also include bonus eligibility + equity eligibility + benefits (including medical, dental, vision and 401(k)).

Base salary range shown. Total compensation also includes equity and bonus eligibility and benefits:

$186,065-$218,900 USD

Please be advised that each candidate may submit a maximum of four applications within any 30-day period. We encourage you to carefully evaluate how your skills and interests align with Coinbase's roles before applying.
Commitment to Equal Opportunity

Coinbase is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, creed, gender, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, sex, gender expression or identity, sexual orientation or any other basis protected by applicable law. Coinbase will also consider for employment qualified applicants with criminal histories in a manner consistent with applicable federal, state and local law. For US applicants, you may view the Employee Rights and the Know Your Rights notices by clicking on their corresponding links. Additionally, Coinbase participates in the E-Verify program in certain locations, as required by law.

Coinbase is also committed to providing reasonable accommodations to individuals with disabilities. If you need a reasonable accommodation because of a disability for any part of the employment process, please contact us at accommodations[at]coinbase.com to let us know the nature of your request and your contact information. For quick access to screen reading technology compatible with this site click here to download a free compatible screen reader (free step by step tutorial can be found here).
Global Data Privacy Notice for Job Candidates and Applicants

Depending on your location, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) may regulate the way we manage the data of job applicants. Our full notice outlining how data will be processed as part of the application procedure for applicable locations is available here. By submitting your application, you are agreeing to our use and processing of your data as required.
AI Disclosure

For select roles, Coinbase is piloting an AI tool based on machine learning technologies to conduct initial screening interviews to qualified applicants. The tool simulates realistic interview scenarios and engages in dynamic conversation. A human recruiter will review your interview responses, provided in the form of a voice recording and/or transcript, to assess them against the qualifications and characteristics outlined in the job description.

For select roles, Coinbase is also piloting an AI interview intelligence platform to transcribe and summarize interview notes, allowing our interviewers to fully focus on you as the candidate.

The above pilots are for testing purposes and Coinbase will not use AI to make decisions impacting employment. To request a reasonable accommodation due to disability, please contact accommodations[at]coinbase.com