Staff Software Engineer, Backend - Partners

An Introduction to Primer

Primer is the unified infrastructure for global payments. We give finance and payments teams the visibility and control to reduce complexity, improve performance, and capture more revenue - all from a single platform.

Backed by Sofina, Peak XV Partners, ICONIQ, Tencent, Accel, and Balderton, we're building the payments layer the world's best companies rely on.

Watch our showcase >

Read up on our $100m Series C

Learn more about our culture >

What team will you be joining?

Primer's power grows every time a new partner plugs in — and we make that possible at scale!

In the Partners team we build the platform that enables third parties to unlock Primer's unified payments infrastructure and use it as a foundation for their own growth. We're building the app store for payments: a scalable, flexible ecosystem where partners can discover, integrate, and distribute through Primer.

This team covers: Partner Dashboard, Partner Integration Ownership & Management, Marketplace, Documentation & Samples, Payment & Workflow Integrations, and the underlying integration framework (Nexus) that powers everything under the hood.

Partners is made up of two sub-teams: Partner Experience, focused on the tools and interfaces that make Primer an attractive and easy platform for third parties to build on; and Integrations Core, focused on the technical frameworks that make integrations scalable, consistent, and maintainable.

What will you be doing?

• Setting and driving the technical strategy across the Partners engineering teams, from architecture decisions through to hands-on implementation

• Owning the design of core backend services for high-performance distributed systems, with scale and reliability as non-negotiables

• Acting as the technical authority on partner integrations — shaping how third-party PSPs connect with Primer's platform and raising the bar on what "seamless" actually means

• Leading and influencing engineers across teams without direct authority — through code, design reviews, and technical mentorship

• Spotting and resolving cross-team technical dependencies before they become blockers

• Driving adoption of modern engineering practices (BDD, TDD, rigorous documentation) and holding the line on quality

• Partnering closely with Product to shape roadmap decisions where the technical constraints or opportunities are material
  

What we're looking for

• Demonstrable experience operating at staff or principal level — setting technical direction across multiple teams, not just within one

• Deep backend engineering expertise, with a track record of designing and building distributed systems at scale

• The kind of judgment that earns trust fast — engineers follow your technical lead because you're right, not because of your title

• Experience with Python is a strong advantage; we're less concerned about specific languages than we are about depth of backend systems thinking

• Solid understanding of payments infrastructure or developer platform engineering — you know what it takes to build for third-party integrators

• Strong written and verbal communication; you can make complex technical decisions legible to non-technical stakeholders

✅ A typical interview process

• An initial intro call with a Talent Partner

• An interview with the Hiring Manager

• Challenge Stage - Contextualised to the role

• A final, values-alignment interview

What's the culture like at Primer?

We're building a culture where people can do their best work and be proud of the impact they have. You'll be working with people who are mission-driven, smart, and reflective, and who are genuinely invested in building exceptional products and delivering success for our merchants.

We work remotely, and have done since day one. We believe that building a successful, profitable company goes beyond proximity. We invest in our relationships through great remote working practices and thoughtfully designed face-to-face time, including workations, our annual company retreat, and co-working space access worldwide.

The work is challenging. Scaleups are a challenge, and building category-defining products is a challenge. But there's a meaningful difference between a challenge and a struggle. At Primer, the right challenge comes with the right support: strong onboarding, a collaborative environment, and a team that is genuinely invested in your success. It's never something you face alone.

Our benefits

🌍 We are fully remote and globally distributed; and have been since day one
💰 Competitive share options
🌴 Uncapped holiday, with 25 days minimum to be taken
🗣️ Co-working space access
📅 Workations & Company Retreat
💻 The best equipment for your role
🏠 £500 towards your home office setup
🔎 Generous learning budget
🏥 Private Medical Insurance
📈 A broad set of additional perks and benefits (depending on location)

Don’t meet every single requirement?

At Primer, we're dedicated to building a diverse, inclusive, and authentic workplace. If you're excited about this role but your experience doesn't align perfectly with every qualification listed, we encourage you to apply. You may be the right candidate for this or other roles.

Primer is committed to the equal treatment of all current and prospective employees and adopts a zero-tolerance approach to discrimination, regardless of age, disability, sex, sexual orientation, pregnancy and maternity, race or ethnicity, religion or belief, gender identity, marriage and civil partnership, or any other background or belief.