Staff Engineer, Embedded Finance & AI

Reap's embedded finance platform powers the card issuing and financial infrastructure that our clients and partners depend on. As Reap scales across new markets and use cases, the platform needs to evolve: from architecture and scalability, to technical debt, to how we build software with AI. As a Staff Engineer, you will be the senior IC technical owner of this evolution. This is not a management role — it is a high-leverage engineering leadership position for someone who drives change through technical excellence, systems thinking, and cross-team influence. You'll set the architectural direction for the platform, lead AI adoption across engineering teams, and work closely with Card Engineering Managers to ensure platform initiatives land in product. What You’ll Do Define and drive the technical roadmap for the embedded finance platform: scalability improvements, architectural modernisation, and tech debt resolution Lead the adoption of AI-assisted engineering across Reap's Product Engineering teams — from AI-augmented development workflows (e.g., Claude Code, LLM-assisted code review) to agentic automation of repetitive engineering processes Work closely with Card Engineering Managers to align platform direction with product delivery needs, and provide hands-on technical guidance on complex problems Identify systemic engineering quality issues and build the case — and the plan — to address them Serve as a technical anchor for senior engineers across the Card domain: conducting design reviews, setting standards, and mentoring. Platform Architecture & Scalability Lead architecture review and modernisation of embedded finance systems — service boundaries, data models, API contracts, event flows Identify and resolve scalability bottlenecks before they become production constraints Define reusable patterns and standards that Card Engineering teams can build on Drive platform initiatives end-to-end: from RFC through to production delivery and stability. Tech Debt Management Conduct systematic audits of technical debt across the codebase Prioritise and sequence debt remediation alongside product delivery work Advocate for and lead refactors that have long-term impact on engineering velocity and reliability. AI Enablement & Process Improvement Lead Reap's AI adoption strategy at the engineering team level — defining what "good" looks like for AI-assisted software development Build and maintain reusable AI tooling, prompt patterns, and SDLC workflows (e.g., CLAUDE.md standards, agentic code review, automated test generation) Identify engineering processes where AI can reduce toil and improve quality — and drive those improvements into practice Track and report on AI adoption signals across Product Engineering teams. Technical Leadership (IC) Work closely with Card EMs to shape platform roadmap priorities and resolve technical dependencies Conduct architecture and design reviews for high-impact initiatives Set engineering standards for code quality, observability, testability, and reliability across the Card domain Mentor Staff and Senior engineers; elevate the technical bar across teams. What We’re Looking For 10+ years of software engineering experience, with a track record of technical leadership at Staff or Principal level Deep experience in distributed systems, API platform architecture, or financial infrastructure at scale Demonstrated ability to drive large, complex technical initiatives across multiple teams without direct authority Strong systems thinking: able to reason about fault-tolerance, observability, data consistency, and performance at scale Clear and compelling communicator — can write RFCs, lead design reviews, and present technical direction to engineering and executive audiences Genuine interest in AI/LLM tooling and its application to software engineering workflows Hands-on experience with AI-assisted development tools (e.g., Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, Cursor) and integrating them into engineering team workflows. Our main stack is TypeScript, Node.js, NestJS, and AWS. Nice to Have Experience in fintech, card issuing, payments, or API platform infrastructure Experience defining and tracking engineering metrics (DORA, AI-augmented output, platform reliability) Familiarity with card Issuing/embedded finance product models and card network infrastructure (Visa, Mastercard, Thredd or equivalent) Experience leading technical uplift programs: reducing tech debt at scale, improving test coverage, migrating legacy systems Familiarity with observability tools (New Relic, Datadog, OpenTelemetry) and CI/CD automation. Your Adventure Benefits High-ownership, high-impact role at the frontier of stablecoin-powered finance Work directly with strategic partners and shape how Reap expands its financial ecosystem Operate with significant autonomy as Reap's technical owner of a key partnership Join a high-caliber team across engineering, product, and operations Insurance coverage after probation Reap Card stipend Use of AI tools at work — and the space to learn, experiment, and grow with them A culture of innovation, inclusion, and continuous learning.