Staff Software Engineer - Product Foundations
Company: Plaid
Location: San Francisco
Posted on: February 19, 2026
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Job Description:
Job Description Job Description Network Foundations is Plaid’s
authoritative source of truth for the user lifecycle, powering user
recognition across integration paths, authentication with Plaid,
intelligent and context-aware onboarding flows, and the core user
data models that drive insights for Plaid’s newest ML-based
products. We own the living graph of people’s financial lives — and
we operate it at global scale for some of the world’s largest
companies, including Google, Meta, Shopify, Square, Robinhood, and
Venmo. Our mission is to make Plaid’s network data easy to query,
highly accurate, and legally compliant. The infrastructure we build
is used by product and machine learning teams across the company to
develop high-precision features, analytics, and customer
experiences. We focus on enabling consistent data access across
both real-time and offline workflows. Responsibilities Design and
build backend data systems that make it possible to query a user’s
complete financial life (Plaid users, accounts, and transactions,
identity) at scale. You will develop and maintain graph-based
infrastructure for identity resolution and entity mapping Lead
high-impact projects from design through execution: your work will
touch tens of millions of end-users, the best applications in
fintech, and major financial institutions. You will deliver APs and
datasets that power fraud detection, credit decisioning, and
personal finance insights Work on both the 0 to 1 stage and the 1
to n stage of problems Collaborate with data science, machine
learning, legal and product teams to support feature development
and analytics Establish best practices for data quality,
performance, reliability and explainability Contribute to the
team’s technical roadmap and strategy, mentor engineers, and help
grow a culture of excellence Qualifications 8 years of software
engineering experience, including backend system design and data
infrastructure Proven experience designing and maintaining
distributed systems at scale Strong programming skills in Go,
Python, or similar backend languages Experience working with data
platforms (e.g., Redshift, Kafka, Airflow, DBT, or equivalent)
Familiarity with data modeling and lifecycle challenges Strong
communication and collaboration skills with cross-functional
partners Nice-to-Haves Experience with graph databases or
graph-based data modeling Exposure to ML infrastructure or support
systems (e.g., feature stores, batch/stream data) Understanding of
data privacy, data access restrictions, or legal compliance in data
systems Prior experience mentoring or leading technical direction
for other engineers Experience defining the roadmap of an ambiguous
technical area. Target base salary for this role is between
$202,800 and $330,000 per year. Additional compensation in the form
of equity and/or commission is dependent on the position offered.
Plaid provides a comprehensive benefit plan, including medical,
dental, vision, and 401(k). Pay is based on factors such as (but
not limited to) scope and responsibilities of the position,
candidate's work experience and skillset, and location. Pay and
benefits are subject to change at any time, consistent with the
terms of any applicable compensation or benefit plans.
Keywords: Plaid, Hayward , Staff Software Engineer - Product Foundations, Engineering , San Francisco, California
