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Staff Software Engineer, Backend (Platform - Identity IDV)
We're hiring a Staff Software Engineer to own the multi-year technical vision and architecture for Coinbase's identity verification platform within Platform. This platform powers the decision engine, vendor orchestration, and infrastructure that determines whether an identity is genuine at global scale - processing approximately 700K verifications per month across Retail, Prime, and Institutional business lines. You'll define the identity trust layer that every Coinbase product will be built on, leading a three-year arc from platform consolidation through vendor-agnostic orchestration to self-serve scalability for the next billion users.
What you'll do:
- Own end-to-end architecture and technical direction for Coinbase's IDV platform - the decision engine, vendor orchestration layer, and verification infrastructure that all business lines depend on.
- Lead platform consolidation by migrating all IDV onto a single decision-engine-driven platform, retiring 100+ legacy rules and fragmented paths, and eliminating single-vendor points of failure.
- Design and build vendor-agnostic orchestration with automated, real-time routing and failover that selects the optimal vendor per request and dynamically balances fraud prevention (FAR) against user access (FRR/SCR).
- Scale the platform to support every new product, region, and verification modality (document, biometric, liveness) with self-serve configuration so any Coinbase team integrates IDV without a dependency request.
- Drive cross-team technical strategy and set the abstractions, APIs, and platform patterns that the broader Identity org builds on, influencing at the Staff level across multiple pods.
Required Skills and Experience:
- 8+ years of backend software engineering with a track record of deploying and operating large-scale production systems in regulated or fintech environments.
- Proven technical leadership owning end-to-end design and delivery of complex, cross-team backend systems, including system design, architecture, API/data-model design, and production rollout.
- Deep distributed-systems expertise spanning scalability, reliability, API design, and high availability for Tier-0 services.
- Expert-level coding in Go (or equivalent systems language) with hands-on experience in gRPC/microservices, AWS, and Kubernetes.
- Experience in identity, KYC, fraud infrastructure, vendor orchestration, or payments domains with the ability to turn ambiguous compliance and platform problems into actionable technical roadmaps.
- Utilizes generative AI responsibly, maintaining human oversight to deliver business-ready outputs and drive measurable improvements in workflow efficiency, cost, and quality.
Pay Transparency Notice: Base salary varies by location (see range below). Total compensation may also include equity and bonus eligibility, and benefits (medical, dental, vision, 401(k)).
- Application Limit: Candidates may submit a maximum of 3 applications within a 6-month period.
- Equal Opportunity Employer: Coinbase is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, protected veteran status, or genetic information. Applicants with criminal histories will be considered consistent with applicable federal, state, and local laws.
- US Applicants: View Employee Rights, Know Your Rights, and E-Verify Notice of Participation.
- Accommodations: If you are an individual with a disability who needs a reasonable accommodation, email us your request and contact info at accommodations[at]coinbase.com. Need screen reading technology? Click here to download a free compatible screen reader and view the tutorial.
- Data Privacy & Arbitration: By submitting your application, you agree to our Candidate Privacy Notice. US applicants: By submitting your application, you agree to Arbitration of Disputes.
Skills Required
- 8+ years of backend software development experience designing, building, and scaling large-scale distributed systems with service-oriented architecture
- Led platform-building efforts transforming fragmented services into reusable systems (shared frameworks, unified APIs, multi-tenant architectures) within financial or transactional domains
- Deep expertise in Go (or similar backend languages) with ability to architect fault-tolerant, highly reliable systems handling high-volume financial data across entities and currencies
- Track record of setting technical direction across teams, influencing roadmaps, and driving alignment with technical and non-technical stakeholders
- Proven ability to translate complex financial, accounting, or compliance requirements into well-structured, maintainable systems
- Utilizes generative AI responsibly with human oversight to deliver business-ready outputs and measurable workflow improvements
What the Team is Saying
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Coinbase Compensation & Benefits Highlights
How does Coinbase ensure its pay and bonus plans are competitive?
Coinbase uses a market-driven, pay-for-performance approach to keep pay and bonus plans competitive. Coinbase regularly benchmarks roles against leading technology and fintech companies using external market data and reviews its compensation programs on a recurring basis to ensure salary, bonus, and equity remain aligned with the broader market and business goals. Annual bonus and equity programs are tied to both company results and individual impact, so when Coinbase and its people perform, total rewards reflect that performance.
Coinbase Insights
What We Do
Crypto creates economic freedom by ensuring that people can participate fairly in the economy, and Coinbase (NASDAQ: COIN) is on a mission to increase economic freedom for more than 1 billion people. We’re updating the century-old financial system by providing a trusted platform that makes it easy for people and institutions to engage with crypto assets, including trading, staking, safekeeping, spending, and fast, free global transfers. We also provide critical infrastructure for onchain activity and support builders who share our vision that onchain is the new online. And together with the crypto community, we advocate for responsible rules to make the benefits of crypto available around the world.
Why Work With Us
We have the opportunity to accelerate the pace of innovation in the world by building an open financial system. Our vision is to create more economic freedom in the world, to help people control their own wealth, start companies, have financial privacy, and participate in the global economy. And to get us there, we focus, build and move as a team.
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Employees work remotely.
Coinbase is remote-first, which enables us to innovate, build and move quickly. Our teams are able to work effectively from around the globe with time for in-person offsites and team meetups to enhance collaboration and connection.
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