PayPal Sr Engineer - API Digital Wallet 

United States, California, San Jose 

331525820

This job delivers complete solutions spanning all phases of the Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC). It involves advising management on project-level issues, guiding junior engineers, operating with little supervision, and applying knowledge of technical best practices.

Essential Responsibilities:

• Delivers complete solutions spanning all phases of the Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC) (design, implementation, testing, delivery and operations), based on definitions from more senior roles.
• Advises immediate management on project-level issues
• Guides junior engineers
• Operates with little day-to-day supervision, making technical decisions based on knowledge of internal conventions and industry best practices
• Applies knowledge of technical best practices in making decisions

Minimum Qualifications:

• Minimum of 5 years of relevant work experience and a Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience.

As a Senior Staff Software Engineer in our payments engineering team, you will play a pivotal role in designing and building scalable, secure, and highly available systems that support real-time transaction processing, digital wallet integrations, and global money movement. You will be the technical go-to person for architecture, design, and deep system-level troubleshooting across our payment platform.Your Day-to-Day:

• Lead major initiatives to design, develop, and optimize large-scale distributed systems for wallet-based payments and cross-border transactions.
• Architect and build core platform components using TypeScript, Node.js, and AWS-native services with a strong focus on performance, observability, and fault tolerance.
• Design APIs (REST & GraphQL) and real-time processing workflows that integrate with internal and external wallet providers.
• Drive best practices in cloud-native architecture leveraging AWS Lambda, API Gateway, DynamoDB, SQS/SNS, Kinesis, Step Functions, and EventBridge.
• Mentor and pair-program with engineers to raise the bar for code quality, operational excellence, and system design.
• Collaborate closely with product, compliance, and partner integration teams to deliver seamless and reliable payment experiences.
• Implement observability, monitoring, and alerting to ensure end-to-end reliability and proactive incident response.
• Participate in on-call rotations and support production systems with a focus on minimizing downtime and user impact.
• Continuously evaluate and improve system performance using metrics and real-world transaction data.

What You Bring:

• 14+ years of experience in software engineering with a proven track record in financial systems, payments, or digital wallets.
• Deep hands-on experience building resilient backend services and transaction processing pipelines on AWS Cloud.
• Desired proficiency in TypeScript and strong command of Java and at least one scripting language (e.g., Python, Shell).
• Experience with event-driven architectures, messaging systems (Kafka, SQS/SNS), and distributed data processing.
• Strong SQL and data modeling skills with experience in MySQL, PostgreSQL, Redshift, or similar databases.
• Proficient ininfrastructure-as-codetools like Terraform and/or CloudFormation.
• Demonstrated success building and scaling mission-critical APIs, real-time services, and batch workflows.
• Prior experience in payments, FX handling, ledger systems, or settlement workflows is a strong plus.
• Passion for clean code, robust testing, and secure design practices.
• Strong communication and collaboration skills across engineering, product, and partner-facing teams.
• A mindset focused on customer impact, agility, and continuous improvement.

Travel Percent:

The total compensation for this practice may include an annual performance bonus (or other incentive compensation, as applicable), equity, and medical, dental, vision, and other benefits. For more information, visit .

The US national annual pay range for this role is $123,500 to $212,850

Our Benefits:

Any general requests for consideration of your skills, please