Staff Backend Engineer (Payments and Billing)

The role

You will lead the technical architecture and implementation of payments and billing systems. You will design and operate backend services for global subscription payments and use AI agents for engineering workflows.

What you will do

• Lead technical architecture and implementation of payments and billing systems
• Design, build, and operate backend services for global subscription payments
• Own billing lifecycle, global payments, invoicing, reconciliation, and financial reliability
• Ensure compliance and security of financial systems through PCI DSS, tokenization, and encryption
• Lead agentic engineering using AI agents across design, implementation, testing, and operations
• Build shared AI leverage for payments like agent skills for alert triage and incident investigation
• Define guardrails for AI-assisted changes in PCI scope
• Modernize legacy systems and eliminate technical debt using AI agents
• Partner with Product, Finance, Risk, Platform, and Analytics teams
• Mentor engineers and shape cross-team technical strategy

Required qualifications

• 8+ years of backend engineering experience
• Expertise in building and scaling distributed systems for financial or mission-critical workloads
• Foundation in data modeling, transactional consistency, and high-throughput architectures
• Hands-on SQL (e.g., MySQL, PostgreSQL)
• Familiarity with NoSQL and caching
• Skilled in observability and reliability practices
• Strong coding ability in at least one modern backend language such as Ruby, Java, Go, or Python
• Hands-on experience with agentic engineering tools and workflows in a real production setting
• Proven track record of technical leadership

Nice to have

• Strong coding ability in Ruby
• Deep experience designing and operating payment or billing systems
• Integrated with major payment service providers (Stripe, Adyen, Braintree, PayPal)
• Knowledge of compliance and security standards (PCI DSS, encryption, tokenization)
• Understand fraud prevention strategies
• Led large-scale migrations between payment providers or billing systems
• Built agent skills, MCP integrations, or AI-assisted on-call and incident workflows
• Designed human-in-the-loop or AI code-review and merge controls in a regulated or PCI-scoped environment
• Understand AI-specific security risks

Benefits

• Scribd Flex (flexible work model)
• Comprehensive health, dental, and vision coverage
• Mental health support and disability coverage
• Generous paid time off including vacation, sick time, holidays, winter break, volunteer time, and sabbaticals
• Paid parental leave and family support benefits
• Retirement matching and employee equity
• Learning and development programs and professional growth opportunities
• Wellness and home office stipends
• Complimentary access to the Scribd, Inc. suite of products
• Enterprise access to leading AI tools

Before you apply

• Must be currently based in or near one of the listed cities in the United States, Canada, or Mexico

About the company

Scribd, Inc. is on a mission to advance human understanding through products including Scribd, Slideshare, Everand, and Fable.