Staff Software Engineer – Financial Platform, Issuing

This is a fully remote position, open to applicants in California.

📋 Description

• Act as a technical authority on global card networks for Issuing teams.

• Analyze network specifications, message flows, certification requirements, mandates, and operational behavior.

• Collaborate directly with card networks to influence requirements, clarify ambiguities, and achieve favorable outcomes for Block.

• Tackle complex, ambiguous engineering challenges that span multiple teams, systems, or domains.

• Collaborate with technical leads, program DRIs, and senior stakeholders to develop solutions at the intersection of card networks and issuing platforms.

• Develop production code and create tools for certification and conformance.

• Evaluate network messages, assess designs and code, and troubleshoot issues to both protocol and field levels.

• Oversee the entire network certification and mandatory release cycles.

• Create shared frameworks, standards, tools, and practices.

• Offer design guidance, conduct code reviews, provide mentorship, and contribute technical insights and documentation.

• Utilize AI-driven tools throughout the engineering lifecycle.

• Engage in on-call duties, incident response, and reliability enhancements for critical financial systems.

⛳️ Requirements

• In-depth, up-to-date knowledge of at least one major card network, preferably Visa.

• Familiarity with direct connectivity, ISO 8583, authorization and clearing processes, stand-in processing, specifications, certification, and mandate cycles.

• Have personally developed, certified, or managed a live direct network connection, rather than solely integrating through a processor.

• Proven experience working closely with card networks to obtain rulings, exceptions, extensions, configuration changes, defect resolutions, or certification results.

• Strong hands-on software engineering background in building and managing highly reliable financial or payment systems at scale.

• Demonstrated ability to lead technically complex and ambiguous projects across team boundaries, influencing technical direction beyond one’s immediate area of responsibility.

• Experience in developing frameworks, standards, tools, architecture, or practices that have been adopted by other engineers and teams.

• Comprehensive understanding of the card lifecycle, covering issuance and fulfillment, provisioning and activation, authorization, ledgering, clearing and settlement, reconciliation, disputes, or fraud.

• Working knowledge of Mastercard and American Express.

• Proficiency with AI-assisted engineering workflows and the ability to critically evaluate and apply AI-generated outputs.

• Willingness to participate in an on-call rotation for critical financial systems.

🏝️ Benefits

• Remote work.

• Medical insurance.

• Flexible time off.

• Retirement savings plans.

• Modern family planning.

• Reasonable accommodations for disabled applicants.