Principal Engineer - Digital Ecosystem

Nu is one of the largest digital financial platforms in the world, with more than 122 million customers across Brazil, Mexico, and Colombia. Guided by our mission to fight complexity and empower people, we are redefining financial services in Latin America and this is still just the beginning of the purple future we're building.

Listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: NU), we combine proprietary technology, data intelligence, and an efficient operating model to deliver financial products that are simple, accessible, and human.

Our impact has been recognized by global rankings such as Time 100 Companies, Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies, and Forbes World’s Best Bank. Visit our institutional page https://international.nubank.com.br/careers/  

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About the team 

In 2026 we will transform the Digital Ecosystem into a place where customers discover advantages, pay effortlessly and feel protected, and where merchants grow through data‑driven integrated partnerships. Our priorities are: (1) elevating app quality, (2) deepening customer engagement with contextual and personalized experiences, (3) making Nubank the preferred payments partner and growth engine for merchants, and (4) ensuring scalable, compliant, and financially healthy foundations. This role will own the technical plan to deliver that vision across NuPay, Ads & Rewards and Insurance.

Mission design and operationalize the 2–3 year technical end‑state for the Digital Ecosystem so that:

• NuPay scales to become the de facto checkout and wallet for Nubank customers,
• Ads & Rewards delivers great scalable and platformized products to delight both merchants and millions of customers,
• Insurance launches and scales high‑quality one‑click complements (Mobile Insurance Relaunch, Pix Protegido evolution), while maintaining aggressive SLOs, strong observability, controlled TCO and an elevated engineering culture.

About the role 

We are hiring a Senior Staff or Principal Engineer to support driving the technical vision and execution for Nubank’s Digital Ecosystem division, with initial focus on NuPay, Ads & Rewards and Insurance. This is a division‑level leadership role: you will work with exceptional engineers (including staff engineers), lead cross‑org architectural decisions, negotiate trade‑offs with product/finance/legal, and enable scalable delivery of high‑impact products (checkout & wallet, advertiser platform and benefits hub, and 1‑click insurance products).

Key responsibilities and Expectations

• Support defining the division’s technical end‑state (2–3 years): architecture, shard/partition strategy, migration path (one‑stack) and explicit trade‑offs (cost × latency × availability).
• Co-own availability and performance: set SLIs/SLOs, error budgets, runbooks, incident playbooks and an observability strategy that supports merchants with strict SLAs.
• Support Ads & Rewards platform design: platforms, decision/bidding service, real‑time vs batch decisioning, measurement & attribution (ROAS/incrementality), and minimise impact on app UX.
• Drive NuPay ↔ Ads integration for aspirational purchases: real‑time underwriting, multi‑source funding, take‑rate modelling, card‑on‑file / wallet flows and onboarding for flagship merchants.
• Enable Insurance delivery: technical enablement for one‑click products, partner integration and governance, migration to internal platforms where applicable, and app quality improvements (TTFD, dashboards, NPS).
• Support one‑stack discovery and phased migration: balance platformization with pragmatic delivery and tech‑debt management to avoid blocking growth.
• Catalyse product quality culture: introduce and operationalize Product Quality Reviews, drive app excellence rituals, and ensure UX/technical quality are considered across the product lifecycle.
• Mentor and grow engineering leaders and staff engineers; run RFCs, tech talks and post‑mortems; design career paths and enable managers to deliver cross‑BU initiatives.
• Represent the division in cross‑org negotiations and external partner discussions (merchants, partners, regulators), aligning stakeholders and escalating risks proactively.
• Track and report technical impact against business metrics and engineering health indicators.

Qualifications

 Professional Experience & Education:

• High Education Degree in Information Technology or Engineering Field preferred.
• Significant and proven experience as a senior Individual Contributor (IC) or equivalent position (e.g., Staff/Senior Staff Engineer) in high-growth technology companies.
• Demonstrated history in architecting and designing scalable and resilient systems.
• Prior experience in technical leadership roles or as a Software Developer early in the career.

Competences & Attributes:

• Fluency in English is mandatory.
• Ability to influence and manage complex and cross-functional stakeholders (Engineering, Product, Design, Business) without direct authority.
• Product-Centric Mindset, focus on driving innovation and delivering customer-centric products.
• Strong Business Acumen, with the capacity to analyze business and market dynamics to ensure engineering decisions are aligned with the company's strategic direction.

Role Location 

Brazil

Reports To

This position reports to Liciane Andreatta (Senior Director of Engineering)

 Benefits

• Chance of earning equity at Nubank
• Food/ Meal Card (Vale-Refeição and/or Vale Alimentação)
• Public Transportation Commuting Benefit (Vale-Transporte)
• NuCare – Psychological, Financial and Legal Assistance Program
• Life Insurance
• Medical Plan
• Dental Plan
• NuLanguage – Language Course Program
• Nucleo - Our learning platform of courses
• Extended Parental Leave
• Daycare Allowance
• Parental Consultancy
• Work-from-home Allowance
• Gym Partnerships
• 30 days of paid vacation
• Relocation Assistance Package, if applicable

Hybrid 2-3 times/week: Our hybrid work model brings us to the office at least twice a week, on strategic days designed to maximize team connection and collaboration. For more details, visit https://building.nubank.com/nu-hybrid-work-model/