Staff Software Engineer, Credit Underwriting

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.
The Role
Square Banking has revolutionized the way businesses and consumers obtain the funding needed to achieve their goals. Unlike traditional business financing products, Square Banking extends offers to pre-qualified sellers with no application process, funds are deposited as soon as the next business day, and repayment happens as a fixed percentage of daily card sales. Since the product launched in 2014, Square Banking has offeredbillions of dollars in loans to hundreds of thousands of sellers.
As a Staff Software Engineer on the Credit Underwriting Team, you will help grow and expand access to credit for our Square sellers. You will be responsible for designing, building and owning sophisticated underwriting services that leverage data and machine learning technologies to originate and approve a variety of lending products. Our customers are internal teams iterating on existing loan products as well as experimenting with brand new loan structures. Our backend is the powerhouse behind all of loan origination, and our frontend enables product teams to customize, test, and manage the credit policies behind these loans. You will work primarily on our backend systems.
You Will

• Solve ambiguous, high-risk, and cross-team challenges in underwriting systems by working directly in the code and carrying solutions from implementation to resolution across the lending stack
• Guide the long-term technical strategy for underwriting services while contributing hands-on to critical lending platform capabilities
• Partner with engineering, product, risk, and data science teams in shaping and developing novel lending capabilities.
• Raise the technical bar through design reviews and architectural guidance, creating your own designs for underwriting systems and providing feedback on designs across lending teams, setting high standards for reliability, maintainability, and extensibility
• Mentor engineers to grow their technical depth and leadership capabilities, fostering expertise in underwriting domain knowledge and platform development
• Further develop a best-in-class underwriting platform: ensuring robust APIs, clear documentation, and responsive support that enables credit policy teams to move quickly and safely

You Have

• 12+ years of backend engineering experience with proven organizational impact
• Expertise in Go, Ruby, or Kotlin with openness to learn others
• Proven track record of architecting and scaling high-reliability financial systems with high operational excellence, fault tolerance, and data integrity
• Strong mentorship, cross-team collaboration, and technical communication skills, with experience building trust across teams and functions
• Ability to decompose complex, ambiguous problems into maintainable solutions
• (optional) Domain experience in lending, credit underwriting, or consumer credit systems

Technologies We Use and Teach

• AWS
• Go
• Ruby on Rails
• Kafka
• Terraform
• ES6 & TypeScript
• React

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.
Zone A:
$263,600 - $395,400 USD
Zone B:
$263,600 - $395,400 USD
Zone C:
$263,600 - $395,400 USD
Zone D:
$263,600 - $395,400 USD
Use of AI in Our Hiring Process
We may use automated AI tools to evaluate job applications for efficiency and consistency. These tools comply with local regulations, including bias audits, and we handle all personal data in accordance with state and local privacy laws.
Contact us at [email protected] with hiring practice or data usage questions.
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, Inc. (NYSE: XYZ) builds technology to increase access to the global economy. Each of our brands unlocks different aspects of the economy for more people. Square makes commerce and financial services accessible to sellers. Cash App is the easy way to spend, send, and store money. Afterpay is transforming the way customers manage their spending over time. TIDAL is a music platform that empowers artists to thrive as entrepreneurs. Bitkey is a simple self-custody wallet built for bitcoin. Proto is a suite of bitcoin mining products and services. Together, we're helping build a financial system that is open to everyone.