Staff Software Engineer

The International Card & Risk Services Technology (ICRST) organization delivers the technology strategy, platforms and solutions that underpin International Card Services and Credit & Fraud Risk across global markets. With approximately 900 colleagues across the UK, US, Canada, India and Mexico, ICRST plays a critical role in shaping enterprise-wide technology outcomes and driving compliance, resilience and innovation

Staff Software Engineer leads the design and implementation of scalable software solutions, provides technical mentorship, oversees platform integration and maintenance, conducts design reviews, collaborates with cross-functional teams, and optimizes development processes to ensure high-quality, reliable, and efficient software systems.

Responsibilities

• Lead the design and modernization of a high-availability, low-latency payment authorization platform

• Drive architectural decisions across services, APIs, and event-driven systems, ensuring scalability, resilience, and security

• Build and promote reusable frameworks, libraries, and platform components to accelerate engineering velocity and consistency

• Provide technical leadership, mentorship, and coaching to engineers, fostering a culture of excellence, continuous learning, and high engineering standards

• Conduct design reviews and code inspections to ensure architectural integrity, code quality, and adherence to best practices

• Stay hands-on: troubleshoot complex production issues, optimize performance, and contribute to critical code paths

• Partner with product, risk, and infrastructure teams to define requirements and deliver robust payment solutions (e.g., ISO 8583, real-time authorization flows)

• Champion modern engineering practices including microservices, cloud-native design, CI/CD, and observability

• Ensure system reliability through fault tolerance, performance optimization, and graceful degradation strategies

• Oversee platform health, including code quality, testing, source control, and CI/CD processes

• Align technology initiatives with business objectives through strong cross-functional collaboration

• Identify and implement opportunities to leverage Generative AI to enhance system capabilities and developer productivity

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or equivalent practical experience (advanced degree preferred)

• 8+ years of software engineering experience with strong expertise in Java (JDK 11+) and backend systems

• Proven experience designing and operating high-scale, low-latency distributed systems

• Strong understanding of data systems (relational and NoSQL) and core computer science fundamentals (algorithms, system design)

• Experience building enterprise-grade APIs (REST/gRPC) and event-driven architectures (e.g., Kafka)

• Hands-on experience with cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, or Azure) and containerization (Docker, Kubernetes)

• Experience with modern software development practices (SDLC, CI/CD, testing, code quality, observability)

• Demonstrated ability to lead, mentor, and influence engineers and drive technical excellence

• Strong problem-solving skills with the ability to navigate complex, ambiguous systems

Domain Expertise

• Deep understanding of payment processing systems (authorization flows, card networks, ISO 8583, transaction lifecycles)

• Experience building scalable, fault-tolerant systems at enterprise scale

• Experience developing platforms or reusable frameworks adopted across teams

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience modernizing legacy/monolithic systems into cloud-native architectures

• Familiarity with risk, fraud, or authorization decisioning systems

• Experience with Generative AI (LLMs, embeddings, prompt workflows, or developer tooling)

• Knowledge of observability and SRE practices (metrics, logging, tracing)

• Experience with zero-downtime deployments (blue-green, canary)

• Understanding of security and compliance standards (e.g., PCI-DSS)

Depending on factors such as business unit requirements, the nature of the position, cost and applicable laws, American Express may provide visa sponsorship for certain position.