The Senior Software Engineer, Backend will design, build, and optimize systems for fraud detection, risk management, and user protection at scale. This role involves providing technical leadership for end-to-end projects, driving architectural decisions for risk mitigation systems, and delivering complex features. The position requires 5+ years of backend experience with proficiency in languages like Go, Ruby, Python, or Java and experience with distributed systems.
As a Senior Software Engineer on the Risk Engineering team within the Consumer & Business group, you'll build and optimize the systems that detect and prevent fraud, manage credit and market risk, and protect millions of users from financial threats in real time at crypto-market scale. You'll provide technical leadership for end-to-end projects, drive architectural decisions that shape our risk detection and mitigation systems, and deliver complex features from inception through production. Your work directly reduces financial loss and keeps Coinbase users safe.
What you'll do:
- Lead the design and delivery of complex risk platform features end-to-end, from architecture through implementation, deployment, and monitoring, with stringent requirements for correctness, performance, and reliability
- Drive architectural decisions that shape Coinbase's risk detection and mitigation systems, translating ambiguous business requirements into scalable working architectures that balance fraud prevention with user experience
- Partner cross-functionally with Data Science, ML, Risk Analysts, Product, and Compliance teams to build proactive systems (real-time decisioning engines, model-driven fraud detection) and reactive solutions (incident response tooling, compliance-driven risk controls)
- Build AI-native risk systems that leverage fleets of agents to automate complex detection and response workflows, significantly reducing the need for manual intervention
- Strengthen the team by mentoring engineers, conducting rigorous code reviews, writing technical design documents for complex systems, and championing engineering best practices across the codebase
- Own system quality and operational excellence by proactively addressing technical debt, driving bug triaging, and leading incident response and post-mortems to ensure platform reliability
Required Skills and Experience:
- 5+ years of backend software engineering experience with a track record of delivering complex, high-impact systems in production environments
- Deep proficiency in backend languages (Go, Ruby, Python, or Java) with demonstrated experience designing distributed systems including microservices, event-driven architectures, and REST/GraphQL APIs
- Proven ability to translate ambiguous requirements into clear technical plans and working architectures, driving technical clarity across engineering, product, and data science teams
- Track record leading end-to-end projects with long-term impact, including scoping, design, implementation, monitoring, and mentoring other engineers through the process
- Experience leading incident response, conducting post-mortems, and driving measurable operational improvements in high-availability systems
- Utilizes generative AI responsibly, maintaining human oversight to deliver business-ready outputs and drive measurable improvements in workflow efficiency, cost, and quality.
P76938
#LI-Remote
Pay Transparency Notice: The target annual base salary for this position can range as detailed below. Total compensation may also include equity and bonus eligibility and benefits (including medical, dental, and vision).
- Application Limit: Candidates may submit a maximum of 3 applications within a 6-month period.
- Equal Opportunity Employer: Coinbase is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, protected veteran status, or genetic information. Applicants with criminal histories will be considered consistent with applicable federal, state, and local laws.
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