Software Engineer at Block in Bay Area, CA, United States of America

Job description

• Since we opened our doors in 2009, the world of commerce has evolved immensely, and so has Square. After enabling anyone to take payments and never miss a sale, we saw sellers stymied by disparate, outmoded products and tools that wouldn’t work together.
• So we expanded into software and started building integrated, omnichannel solutions – to help sellers sell online, manage inventory, offer buy now, pay later functionality, book appointments, engage loyal buyers, and hire and pay staff. Across it all, we’ve embedded financial services tools at the point of sale, so merchants can access a business loan and manage their cash flow in one place. Afterpay furthers our goal to provide omnichannel tools that unlock meaningful value and growth, enabling sellers to capture the next generation shopper, increase order sizes, and compete at a larger scale.
• Today, we are a partner to sellers of all sizes – large, enterprise-scale businesses with complex operations, sellers just starting, as well as merchants who began selling with Square and have grown larger over time. As our sellers grow, so do our solutions. There is a massive opportunity in front of us. We’re building a significant, meaningful, and lasting business, and we are helping sellers worldwide do the same.
• Payment Interfaces builds and operates the APIs and services that power payment experiences across Block, including Square, Cash App, and Afterpay. Our systems process payment traffic worldwide, helping sellers accept payments and customers move money reliably and securely.
• You’ll design, build, and scale customer-facing payment APIs and the critical systems behind them. You’ll bring experience in payments, lead complex projects from design through production, and help shape the team’s technical direction. You’ll learn the specifics of Block’s products and payment processing on the job.
• This is a hands-on engineering role with ongoing operational responsibility. Alongside building new capabilities, you’ll maintain high-volume production systems, participate in on-call and incident response, and make improvements that prevent recurring problems. You’ll use AI throughout your work while remaining accountable for the correctness, security, and reliability of what you ship.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, maintain, and scale customer-facing payment APIs with clear contracts, predictable behavior, and compatibility that developers can rely on.
• Lead complex projects end to end: clarify requirements, evaluate trade-offs, plan incremental delivery, and own testing, rollout, and ongoing maintenance.
• Operate critical payment systems serving worldwide traffic. Participate in the team’s on-call rotation, investigate incidents, and follow through on fixes that improve reliability.
• Improve performance, observability, fault tolerance, and security. Use automation to reduce repetitive operational work and make systems safer to change.
• Work with product and engineering partners across Block to turn payment requirements into reusable capabilities.
• Use AI-assisted tools for design, implementation, testing, and debugging. Critically evaluate their output and help teammates adopt approaches that improve quality and delivery.
• Shape technical decisions within the team and develop others through design reviews, code reviews, documentation, and mentoring

Requirements

• Experience building, maintaining, and scaling customer-facing financial or payment APIs, together with a strong understanding of payments. This is a requirement for the role.
• Experience designing and operating high-volume, highly available distributed systems where correctness, security, and reliability matter.
• An understanding of payment API concerns such as idempotency, retries, asynchronous processing, backward compatibility, and handling partial failures without compromising financial correctness.
• A record of leading complex engineering projects from unclear requirements through production, making technical trade-offs, and coordinating work with partner teams.
• Experience diagnosing production issues and improving systems through monitoring, incident response, and preventive engineering.
• Fluency with AI-assisted engineering tools and the judgment to validate generated code, protect sensitive data, and recognize when deeper investigation is needed.
• Clear written communication and experience helping other engineers develop their technical skills.
• A minimum of 8 years of related experience with a Bachelor’s degree; or 6 years and a Master’s degree; or a PhD with 3 years experience; or equivalent experience

Skills

Required

• Strong understanding of payments
• Leading complex engineering projects
• Clear written communication
• Mentoring other engineers

Benefits

• Every benefit we offer is designed with one goal: empowering you to do the best work of your career while building the life you want. Remote work, medical insurance, flexible time off, retirement savings plans, and modern family planning are just some of our offering. Check out our other benefits at Block.
• Block takes a market-based approach to pay, and pay may vary depending on your location. U.S. locations are categorized into one of four zones based on a cost of labor index for that geographic area. The successful candidate’s starting pay will be determined based on job-related skills, experience, qualifications, work location, and market conditions. These ranges may be modified in the future.
• To find a location’s zone designation, please refer to this resource. If a location of interest is not listed, please speak with a recruiter for additional information.
• $185,200—$277,800 USD