Principal Software Engineer

As Marqeta’s Principal Software Engineer on the Core Issuing & Processing team, you will work across the entire domain to stand up and drive high-impact projects for our customers from inception to completion. You will take on highly technical initiatives that optimize our issuing and processing engines, own the technical roadmap for the core platform, and partner with engineering leaders to drive engineering and operational excellence throughout the organization.

We work Flexible First. This role can be performed remotely anywhere within the United States or from our Oakland office (preferred). We’d love for you to join us!

The Core Issuing and Processing team owns the foundational stack that powers Marqeta's core business. We develop and maintain the systems that span six critical domains: Onboarding, Issuing, Digital Wallets, Authorization & Clearing, Transaction Controls, and Ledger. Together, these systems form the backbone of Marqeta's card issuing and payment processing platform.

The Impact You’ll Have

• Own the technical roadmap and author system designs that enable scalable, secure, and operationally efficient card issuing and payment processing products for our customers.
• Spend significant time in the codebase – writing, reviewing, and optimizing code across the issuing and processing stack.
• Identify and drive high-impact technical initiatives that improve the performance, reliability, and cost-efficiency of our core processing engines.
• Collaborate with Product Managers to analyze requirements and provide technical recommendations across onboarding, issuing, digital wallets, authorization & clearing, transaction controls, and ledger.
• Mentor and guide technical leads, influence stakeholders, and establish success metrics to drive organization-wide technical excellence.
• Apply and evangelize modern best practices in your software designs and implementations to increase the platform's resiliency and scalability.

Who You Are

• 12+ years of hands-on software engineering experience.
• Demonstrated passion for software engineering excellence, including design principles, fault tolerance practices, scalability, cost, security & privacy considerations, and test-driven development.
• Experience partnering with product teams to ideate and bring innovative solutions to market.
• Experience developing and scaling microservices using modern cloud technologies, preferably AWS.
• Experience working with high volume / low latency data infrastructures.
• Solid understanding of security engineering best practices and demonstrable experience in designing solutions that adhere to those standards.
• Passion for non-functional challenges, namely: Scale, Cost, Reliability, Performance, High Availability.
• Experience building systems running in multiple regions.
• Team-oriented approach – can effectively lead a project, participate as an influential team member, and work cross-functionally with other organizations.
• Experience with our tech stack, namely Java, Springboot, Kubernetes, Terraform, Helm, Kafka, JPOS, and AWS services.

Nice-To-Haves

• Master's degree in Software Engineering.
• Experience in payment processing, card issuing, or the payments industry.
• Domain experience in authorization, clearing, settlement, tokenization, or ledger systems.

Your Manager

• Arash Afrooze, Sr Director, Software Engineering

Recruiter For This Role

• Prashant

Typical Process

• Application Submission
• Recruiter phone call
• Hiring manager video call
• Virtual “Onsite” consisting of 4-5, 45 min calls

Compensation and Benefits

Marqeta is a Flex First company which allows you to choose your best working environment, whether that be from home or at a company office. To support Flex First, we calibrate pay to a competitive value according to working location. Compensation is aligned according to three tiers within the United States:

• National: A baseline tier that applies to most of the geographic territory of the United States.
• Premium: Slightly elevated from the National tier, and oriented toward a narrower set of higher cost-of-living areas, such as Los Angeles CA and Seattle WA
• Premium Plus: A tier for the most expensive working areas, like the San Francisco Bay area and New York City.

Visit this page or consult with a Recruiter to determine which tier would be applicable to you.

When determining salaries, we consider several factors including, but not limited to, skills, prior experience, and work location. The new-hire base salary range for this position is:

• National: $242,400 - $303,000
• Premium: $247,500 - $309,400
• Premium Plus: $252,600 - $315,800

We also believe in recognizing the contributions of our people. That's why we award annual bonuses to eligible employees, rewarding both individual performance and the success of the entire company.

Along with monetary compensation, Marqeta offers

• Multiple health insurance options
• Flexible time off – take what you need
• Retirement savings program with company contribution and after tax contributions
• Equity in a publicly-traded company and an Employee Stock Purchase Program
• Family-forming benefits, fertility support, and up to 20 weeks of Parental Leave
• Free therapy sessions, financial and professional coaching, and legal advice
• Monthly stipend to support our remote work model
• Annual “development dollars” to support our people growth and development
• Through Flex First, the freedom to live and work wherever you and your family thrive