Staff CIAM Software Engineer

At Affirm, we exist for the moments that matter—giving people a clear, predictable way to pay over time, with no hidden fees, no surprises, and no tradeoffs on what matters most.

Affirm is building the next generation of customer identity and authentication. This role is a hands-on engineering position inside Information Security, focused on designing and shipping core CIAM capabilities that protect customers and support growth.

You will build and operate backend services that power registration, login, authorization, and account lifecycle flows across B2C and B2B experiences. You will work closely with partner engineering teams and ensure identity features are delivered with strong security fundamentals, reliability, and operational rigor.

• What you'll do
• You have 7+ years of experience designing, developing and launching backend systems at scale using languages like Python or Kotlin.

You have an extensive track record of developing highly available distributed systems using technologies like AWS, MySQL, Spark and Kubernetes.

You have strong verbal and written communication skills that support effective collaboration with our global engineering team.

You have experience delivering major features, system components or deprecating existing functionality in a system through the definition of a technical and execution plan. You write high quality code that is easily understood and used by others.

Design, build, and operate core CIAM backend services that support customer registration, authentication, authorization, account lifecycle, and profile management for B2C and B2B platforms.

Implement and extend identity standards such as OAuth 2.0, OIDC, SAML, and SCIM in code, ensuring correctness, scalability, and clean integration patterns.

Develop backend APIs and services in Python and Kotlin that expose identity capabilities to web, mobile, and partner applications.

Integrate CIAM platforms with internal systems, including user data stores, messaging, fraud signals, and downstream customer platforms.

Own secure authentication and account flows end to end, including MFA, step-up authentication, device binding, consent, and adaptive authentication logic.

Automate CIAM infrastructure and deployments using Infrastructure as Code and CI/CD pipelines, treating identity as a core platform service.

Monitor, debug, and optimize CIAM services for performance, resilience, and abuse detection in high-scale environments.

Strong experience designing and implementing CIAM systems, with deep, hands-on knowledge of OAuth 2.0, OIDC, SAML, and SCIM beyond basic configuration.

5+ years of professional backend software engineering experience

Strong production experience in Python or a similar backend language

Experience designing APIs, automation frameworks, and distributed systems

Hands-on experience building and maintaining CI/CD pipelines

Experience with GitHub-based development workflows and Buildkite or similar build systems

Experience with cloud-native development, preferably AWS

Hands-on experience extending and integrating CIAM platforms such as Okta, Auth0, Ping Identity, ForgeRock, or Azure AD B2C using custom code, hooks, and APIs.

Solid understanding of backend and distributed systems fundamentals, including API design, data modeling, latency, error handling, and observability.

Experience with Infrastructure as Code and automation tools such as Terraform, plus CI/CD pipelines for deploying backend services.

Strong security fundamentals applied through engineering, including access control models, token handling, encryption, MFA, and privacy by design.

Clear communication skills and the ability to work closely with product, frontend, mobile, and security teams while owning backend identity services.

Familiarity with tools such as Cursor and other AI-augmented development environments

Base Pay Grade - P

Equity Grade - USA 7

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.)

CAN base pay range per year: $181,000 - $241,000

This posting is for an existing vacancy

#LI-Remote

Remote-first with flexibility built in
Affirm is proud to be a remote-first company. Most roles can be done from almost anywhere within the country of employment. Some positions may occasionally require in-person work at an Affirm office, and a few are office-based due to the nature of the work. All new hires will be invited to attend an in-person onboarding experience.

For positions based in San Francisco or Los Angeles: Affirm considers qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records, as required by law.