Staff Engineer
American Express
EC1, GB
This job is with American Express, an inclusive employer and a member of myGwork the largest global platform for the LGBTQ+ business community. Please do not contact the recruiter directly. You Lead the Way. We ve Got Your Back. With the right backing, people and businesses have the power to progress in incredible ways. When you join Team Amex, you become part of a global and diverse community of colleagues with an unwavering commitment to back our customers, communities and each other. Here, you ll learn and grow as we help you create a career journey that s unique and meaningful to you with benefits, programs, and flexibility that support you personally and professionally. At American Express, you ll be recognized for your contributions, leadership, and impact every colleague has the opportunity to share in the company s success. Together, we ll win as a team, striving to uphold our company values and powerful backing promise to provide the world s best customer experience every day. And we ll do it with the utmost integrity, and in an environment where everyone is seen, heard and feels like they belong. Join Team Amex and let's lead the way together. At American Express, a Staff Engineer is a senior individual contributor role, equivalent in level to a Director of Engineering. In this role, you will drive the design and development of our next-generation distributed transaction platform, which powers Amex card transactions at scale. This is a high-impact, strategic engineering role with a focus on architecture, design, and technical leadership, rather than hands-on coding. You will be responsible for building highly available, performant, and scalable cloud-based distributed systems which align with the company s long-term vision. Expertise in Java is essential, with additional experience in one other development language being a bonus. Strong design experience to convert high level architecture concepts to engineering specifications for OLTP/Event drivenbased platforms. Experience in design and implementation of microservice-based solutions on Cloud (On-Prem, AWS or GCP), Container based technologies (Kubernetes, Docker & VMs). Experience of designing high performing, high resilient solutions based on distributed architecture incorporating event based, workflows, orchestration and knowledge of cell-based architecture. Strong database experience on SQL-based products (Postgres, Oracle, etc) and NoSQL (HBase, Cassandra, Redis). Experience with CICD pipelines (ie: Jenkins/CircleCI/XLR/Git/GitHub Actions). Experience of event streaming (Apache Spark, Kafka, Message Queues) Experience of contributing to Open-Source Projects. Experience design and implementing application and network security architectures. Applying Solid Engineering Principles (OOP/Functional Paradigms, TDD, DDD, SoC, MicroServices, Caching Strategies). Following leadership behaviours are essential even though this role is of an individual contributor, the expectation is as below: Influence team members with creative changes, decision making and drive technical direction via challenging the status quo and manage risk taking. Stakeholder management and being able to report into multiple lines. Being self organised and able to context switch effectively when delivery prioritises change. Strong communication and collaboration skills ability to proactively engage with other engineers and teams to ensure designs and solutions are delivered per deadline. Ability to effectively interpret technical and business objectives and challenges and articulate solutions. Growth mindset to be curious and passionate about technologies to engage on challenges in designing world class global solutions. A passion for coaching and engaging engineers of all levels - bringing their talent, skills and experience up, to drive the organization forward. Domain Experience: Working 5+ years in the Fintech and Banking IT domain knowledge of Payment Networks is an advantage. How will you make an impact in this role? Work with other Staff Architects, Engineering Leads and Product Owners to define solution requirements. Drive both high-level and detailed technical designs and conduct design reviews as needed. Define the long-term technical strategy of the platform to support product roadmaps. Provide technical mentorship to other software engineers at all levels Implement new, highly scalable platform components. Improve and maintain existing components of the core platform. Actively participate in team and company-wide architecture and engineering discussions and forums. Employ technical expertise to help team members overcome technical problems Enforce to release/project schedule and sprint achievements. Responsible for health and quality of the code across the portfolio, including leadership over SCM, functional testing, and CI/CD tool integration. Minimum Qualifications: Significant active engineering experience in a complex environment and/or comparable experience such as: Successful engineering and deployment of enterprise-grade technology assets in an Agile product environment Bachelor s Degree in computer science, computer science engineering, or related field required; advanced degree preferred Experience in the platform s primary technology stack (Java or Golang, Spring boot, Vertx, Couchbase, Postgres, Redis, Kafka, Splunk, Envoy) Experience with development tools: Jenkins, XL Release Expertise in building fault-tolerant, scalable solutions that are performed at a global enterprise scale Full understanding of Service Oriented Architecture design principles and implementation patterns Ability to construct enterprise-grade APIs using state-of-the-art techniques and best practices (REST, JSON, XML, etc.) Proficient in cross-platform integration Advanced engineering skill with wide-ranging experience; able to resolve complex issues in creative and effective ways SDLC Methodologies and Practices Experience in the card payment network domain or equivalent domain is a HUGE plus! We back our colleagues and their loved ones with benefits and programs that support their holistic well-being. That means we prioritize their physical, financial, and mental health through each stage of life. Benefits include: Competitive base salaries Bonus incentives Support for financial-well-being and retirement Comprehensive medical, dental, vision, life insurance, and disability benefits (depending on location) Flexible working model with hybrid, onsite or virtual arrangements depending on role and business need Generous paid parental leave policies (depending on your location) Free access to global on-site wellness centers staffed with nurses and doctors (depending on location) Free and confidential counseling support through our Healthy Minds program Career development and training opportunities Offer of employment with American Express is conditioned upon the successful completion of a background verification check, subject to applicable laws and regulations. #LI-DNI