Tech Lead Software Engineer (Backend), Identity Platform

Company Description

Since we opened our doors in 2009, the world of commerce has evolved immensely, and so has Square. After enabling anyone to take payments and never miss a sale, we saw sellers stymied by disparate, outmoded products and tools that wouldn’t work together.

So we expanded into software and started building integrated, omnichannel solutions – to help sellers sell online, manage inventory, offer buy now, pay later functionality through Afterpay, book appointments, engage loyal buyers, and hire and pay staff. Across it all, we’ve embedded financial services tools at the point of sale, so merchants can access a business loan and manage their cash flow in one place. Afterpay furthers our goal to provide omnichannel tools that unlock meaningful value and growth, enabling sellers to capture the next generation shopper, increase order sizes, and compete at a larger scale.

Today, we are a partner to sellers of all sizes – large, enterprise-scale businesses with complex operations, sellers just starting, as well as merchants who began selling with Square and have grown larger over time. As our sellers grow, so do our solutions. There is a massive opportunity in front of us. We’re building a significant, meaningful, and lasting business, and we are helping sellers worldwide do the same.

Job Description

Square’s purpose is economic empowerment; since the company’s beginning, we have been helping numerous people start and manage their own businesses. During the pandemic, many small businesses struggled, as they scramble to adapt to going online to reach their customers.

The Identity Platform team cultivates trusted relationships with Sellers and businesses across the globe and supports their growth by seamlessly connecting them to the Square ecosystem.  We do this by providing authentication and authorization mechanisms and delivering solutions that safeguard access to data while providing account-lifecycle management and session security.  We also provide platform solutions for onboarding Sellers to the ecosystem, which includes verification of identity and business data, regulatory screening, qualifying their activation for payment methods, and supporting identity management throughout the lifecycle with Square. We strive to build an Identity platform that empowers both teams at Square and an ecosystem of third party developers.

This is a critical responsibility with huge challenges.  Our services are in the critical path and we have to approach our problems from a global perspective.  We work with many stakeholder teams at Square while navigating compliance and regulatory needs alongside technical and product ambiguities.  We are looking for someone who is passionate about building scalable, resilient and highly available systems and can help us continue to build out our Identity platform through its next evolution.

As a tech lead on the Identity Platform team, you will: 

• Play a crucial role in strategic technical direction setting that supports our mission by influencing roadmaps, architectural considerations and platform cohesion.

• Raise the engineering excellence bar as it pertains to engineering practices, operational practices, and architecture/design reviews

• Drill in where there are problems (operations, SEVs, unblocking stuck teams, technical challenges) and foster a culture of improvement

• Oversee the delivery of strategic or complex initiatives by leading across teams and disciplines

• Lead by example and foster a culture of positivity, psychological safety, and inclusivity within the team

• Provide mentorship and share technical expertise with other engineers 

• Help maintain and improve the processes we use to manage our work

• Participate in an escalated ONCALL rotation for high impact SEVs

If you share our passion for this mission, and are eager to solve these complex challenges, please reach out to us! 

Qualifications

You have:

• 12+ years of industry experience designing and building backend systems using Java or an equivalent language

• A high degree of comfort and a track record of success in high-ambiguity problem spaces

• Experience or familiarity with OAuth specification for public API access

• A track record showing the design, execution, and successful long-term maintenance of complex distributed systems that require high throughput and reliability

• Experience with customer-facing identity solutions (authorization, authentication, verification, or onboarding workflows) 

• Experience leading complex technical projects, e.g. cross-team programs 

• A strong sense of customer empathy and an interest in influencing the direction of a platform

• Excellent software engineering knowle