Staff Backend Engineer – Payments & Billing Job at Scribd (San Francisco)

Job Description

The Payments & Billing team at Scribd powers our subscription revenue engine by delivering the systems that manage billing lifecycles, global payment processing, and financial reliability across Scribd, Everand, Slideshare, and Fable. Our focus areas include payment processing at scale, invoicing, reconciliation, fraud prevention, compliance, and support for international currencies and payment methods. We partner closely with Product, Finance, Risk, and Platform Engineering to ensure that millions of readers worldwide can reliably access our services every day.

Job Responsibility

Lead the technical architecture and implementation of Scribd’s payments and billing systems, the backbone of our subscription business
Design, build, and operate backend services that power subscription payments at global scale
Own billing lifecycle, global payments, invoicing, reconciliation, and financial reliability—integrating with multiple providers (Stripe, Adyen, Braintree) and supporting international currencies and local methods
Ensure compliance and security of financial systems through PCI DSS, tokenization, encryption, and secure data handling
Foster a culture of technical excellence while driving scalable, resilient, and observable financial systems that enable teams to move fast, simplify complexity, and deliver revenue with confidence
Modernize legacy systems and eliminate technical debt to improve velocity and scalability
Partner with Product, Finance, Risk, Platform, and Analytics to deliver secure, reliable financial flows, leveraging data, metrics, and telemetry to uncover trends, resolve anomalies, and guide the team with clarity and foresight
Mentor engineers, shape cross-team technical strategy, and tackle some of the hardest scaling and security challenges in the company

Requirements

8+ years of backend engineering experience, with deep expertise in building and scaling distributed systems for financial or mission-critical workloads
Strong foundation in data modeling, transactional consistency, and high-throughput architectures, with hands-on SQL (e.g., MySQL, PostgreSQL) and familiarity with NoSQL and caching
Skilled in observability and reliability practices: defining SLOs, implementing metrics/alerts, debugging distributed systems, and leading incident response
Strong coding ability in at least one modern backend language such as Ruby (preferred), Java, Go, or Python, with a focus on clean, maintainable, and secure code
Proven track record of technical leadership: setting architectural direction, mentoring engineers, and driving large-scale migrations or modernization efforts
Communicates clearly and collaborates across product, finance, risk, and platform teams, influencing both technical and business decisions
Contributes to cross-team initiatives (mentoring, architecture review groups, knowledge sharing) that shape Scribd’s engineering culture

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) and managed multi-currency or local payment methods
Knowledge of compliance and security standards (PCI DSS, encryption, tokenization)
Understand fraud prevention strategies (chargebacks, retries, card fingerprinting, abuse detection)
Led large-scale migrations between payment providers or billing systems with minimal customer impact

What we offer

Healthcare Insurance Coverage (Medical/Dental/Vision): 100% paid for employees
12 weeks paid parental leave
Short-term/long-term disability plans
401k/RSP matching
Onboarding stipend for home office peripherals + accessories
Learning & Development allowance
Learning & Development programs
Quarterly stipend for Wellness, WiFi, etc.
Mental Health support & resources
Free subscription to the Scribd Inc. suite of products
Referral Bonuses
Book Benefit
Sabbaticals
Company-wide events
Team engagement budgets
Vacation & Personal Days
Paid Holidays (+ winter break)
Flexible Sick Time
Volunteer Day
Company-wide Employee Resource Groups and programs that foster an inclusive and diverse workplace
Access to AI Tools: We provide free access to best-in-class AI tools, empowering you to boost productivity, streamline workflows, and accelerate bold innovation

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Staff Backend Engineer – Payments & Billing

Job Description

Job Responsibility

Requirements

Nice to have

What we offer

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