Staff Software Engineer, Startup Products

The shape of it

In the posting’s own words

The Startup Products team builds Stripe Atlas and other products that help founders start and run a company from anywhere in the world. We believe startups are one of the most effective ways to solve the world’s problems, and we want to give founders a running start—and keep them running.

What it asks for · 7

• 10+ years of software engineering experience, with a track record of owning large, ambiguous systems end-to-end.
• Demonstrated experience defining and delivering large, ambiguous software initiatives from early product and technical exploration through production launch.
• Strong full-stack engineering skills, including experience building reliable backend services and polished user-facing product experiences.
• Ability to create technical direction and align teams with different priorities and constraints without relying on direct authority.
• Product-minded engineering judgment, with a deep commitment to understanding users and delivering meaningful outcomes for them and the business.
• Excellent written and verbal communication, with the ability to move between strategic discussions and detailed technical decisions.
• A high quality bar and attention to detail across product experience, implementation, reliability, and operational readiness.

Also a plus

• Experience with early stage startups and a deep understanding of the challenges founders face all over the world.
• Experience building 0→1 products and taking them from concept through launch and iteration.
• Experience building products involving legal, financial, compliance, or other complex and high-trust workflows.
• Experience building AI-powered product experiences or platforms that safely automate consequential user tasks.
• Experience with Ruby, and/or TypeScript. We care more about strong engineering fundamentals and the ability to learn than expertise in a particular language or framework.

What the job covers

• Define and drive technical strategy across Startup Products, connecting near-term product delivery to a cohesive, durable engineering vision.
• Lead large, ambiguous 0→1 initiatives from problem definition and architecture through implementation, safe launch, and iteration.
• Design, build, and maintain polished user experiences, reliable backend services, APIs, and systems.
• Identify technical risks, dependencies, and foundational investments early, creating incremental plans that de-risk the roadmap and accelerate future work.
• Partner with engineering teams across Stripe, building alignment and influencing their roadmaps and priorities when Startup Products depends on shared capabilities.
• Work directly with founders to understand their needs and translate complex legal, financial, and operational workflows into intuitive products.
• Raise the team’s engineering bar through clear standards, strong documentation, mentoring, and constructive technical feedback.
• Advise product and engineering leadership on emerging opportunities, technical constraints, and investments needed to support the team’s long-term ambitions.

Tools and skills named

Words the posting leans on

• products20×
• experience13×
• technical10×
• engineering9×
• founders7×
• startup7×
• legal5×
• complex4×
• early4×
• experience building4×
• launch4×
• requirements4×
• roadmap4×
• startup products4×
• user4×
• build3×

Counted from the posting after the mission statement and the legal notices are set aside. The ones near the top are the ones a screener is looking for.

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