Backend Engineer - job 3 of 6

WHY WE EXIST

Money should move as easily as data.

It doesn't today. Technology is finally catching up to the need — customers expect instant, global, programmable money. HIFI exists to fix that. Our mission is to make money programmable by default, and to give developers and businesses the tools to move value at software speed.

We're rebuilding the financial plumbing of the internet from the ground up.

THE ROLE

As a Senior Backend Engineer at HIFI, you'll own critical components of our payments infrastructure — from API design and data modeling to event-driven pipelines and financial-grade reliability. You'll work across the full lifecycle of modern money movement: account creation, fiat and stablecoin settlement, global payouts, and onchain connectivity.

This is not a maintenance role. You'll solve hard, novel problems at the edge of what's possible in financial infrastructure, move fast, own your systems end-to-end, and directly shape how billions of dollars flow through the internet.

If you touch it, you own it. That's how we work.

WHAT YOU'LL BUILD

• Design and maintain backend systems powering HIFI's payments, treasury, and settlement infrastructure

• Own APIs and services handling real-time money movement across fiat and stablecoin rails

• Build for fault tolerance, idempotency, and consistency — in payments, correctness is non-negotiable

• Drive architecture decisions for performance, maintainability, and global scale

• Partner with product, frontend, and GTM to ship systems that change how businesses move value

• Mentor engineers and raise the bar for the whole team

WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR

• 4+ years designing and shipping backend systems in production at scale

• Deep proficiency in a modern backend language (Go, Python, Node.js, or similar)

• Solid experience with relational databases, data modeling, and distributed systems consistency

• Strong grasp of event-driven architectures — pub/sub, queues, streaming

• Comfortable owning systems in production: CI/CD, observability, incident response

• You move fast, communicate clearly, and raise the alarm when something isn't right

• Must be within commutable distance from our New York office and able to work in person most days of the week.

NICE TO HAVE

• Experience with financial-grade systems: ledgering, reconciliation, settlement, compliance-aligned design

• Hands-on with global payment rails (ACH, SWIFT, SEPA) or stablecoin infrastructure (EVM, USDC)

• Prior early-stage startup experience — you've built from zero before

THE HIFI CODE

This is how we operate. Not aspirational — actual.

Ownership If you touch it, you own it.

Speed We bias toward motion.

Clarity Confusion is a signal to act.

Standards Quality matters always.

Truth We value directness without drama.

COMPENSATION & BENEFITS

The expected salary range for this role is $135,000 - $160,000 USD. However, the starting base pay will depend on a number of factors including the candidate’s location, skills, experience, market demands, and internal pay parity. Depending on the position offered, equity and other forms of compensation may be provided as part of a total compensation package.

We offer full health coverage (medical, dental and vision) and unlimited PTO.

We're changing how modern business moves value.

If that sounds like the problem you want to spend the next chapter of your career on, we'd love to meet you.

EQUAL OPPORTUNITY STATEMENT

HIFI is an equal opportunity employer. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, or any other legally protected status. We also provide reasonable accommodations during the hiring process.

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