Staff Software Engineer
Job description
About the role
This position centers on owning the global financial product foundations that scale to support all Adyen products, where architectural and design leadership shapes a robust foundation for Financial Products. You will optimize banking connections to streamline operations worldwide, including zones with Adyen banking licenses and partner-dependent regions, while guiding the design and construction of new banking rails as product expansion continues. In this role, you will uphold high engineering standards through mentorship and technical guidance, ensuring that continuous innovation drives a culture capable of challenging the status quo to improve financial product capabilities. The position values clear communication as much as technical skill, requiring you to explain technical decisions in plain words to separate strong engineering outcomes from the rest, and you will spend part of every week on planning, code review, and debugging across agile sprints and daily standups.
Key facts
What you'll do
Architect and evolve global financial product foundations to scale reliably across all Adyen products while leading architectural design for Financial Products.
Optimize banking connections and operations globally, including zones with Adyen banking licenses and partner-dependent regions, to ensure seamless financial workflows.
Design and build new banking rails in alignment with product expansion, ensuring long-term scalability and reliability.
Uphold high engineering standards through mentorship and technical guidance, fostering best practices across the engineering organization.
Drive continuous innovation by challenging the status quo and transforming transformative ideas into improved financial product capabilities.
Communicate technical decisions clearly in plain words, balancing technical depth with accessibility for diverse stakeholders.
Collaborate proactively with product, engineering, and compliance teams to build relationships across diverse cultures and stakeholders.
Identify problems and discover solutions as a self-starter, operating independently with ownership of complex distributed systems.
Leverage a platform mindset to generalize complex processes into simple, flexible services that serve multiple products efficiently.
Write and review code, fix bugs, and improve performance within a modern engineering environment that spans 10+ years of hands-on development experience.
Engage in sprint planning, code review, and debugging sessions, recognizing that engineering excellence depends on iterative refinement and collective review.
Apply financial industry experience of 2+ years, preferably within banking or fintech sectors, to inform decisions aligned with regulatory and operational realities.
Utilize Java coding skills with a strong background and practical experience to build robust, scalable backend systems.
Ensure collaboration remains central across product, engineering, and compliance teams to maintain alignment with Adyen's operational needs and compliance standards.
Requirements
Demonstrate financial industry experience totaling 2+ years, preferably within banking or fintech sectors, to understand domain-specific challenges and regulatory constraints.
Bring hands-on development experience spanning 10+ years in a modern engineering environment, with a proven ability to manage complex projects.
Show technical leadership through mentoring engineers and directing engineering strategy at scale.
Design and build large scale distributed systems with hands-on expertise, ensuring reliability and performance under pressure.
Write Java code with a strong background and practical experience, using the language to implement resilient and efficient solutions.
Adopt a platform mindset to generalize complex processes into simple, flexible services that support multiple products and evolving demands.
Build relationships proactively with clear communication across diverse cultures and stakeholders, ensuring alignment across regions and teams.
Identify problems and discover solutions independently, operating as a self-starter who takes ownership of issues from detection to resolution.
Maintain a commitment to excellence by adhering to high standards of quality, mentorship, and technical guidance in all engineering activities.
Nice to have
Banking experience in EU, UK, or US informs decision making by providing context for regulatory and operational tradeoffs.
Understanding of different regulations and challenges that emerge from working in both European and US markets enhances your ability to design adaptable solutions.
Practical notes
This role operates from the Amsterdam office within an office-first environment. Remote-only arrangements are not available for this position.
Some travel may be required, and specific team details align with Adyen's operational needs.
Typical interview steps
Hiring for engineering roles usually starts with a recruiter screen, followed by one or two technical rounds.
Candidates often solve a coding problem, discuss past projects, and answer system design questions.
Some loops include a take-home task.
Final rounds typically cover team fit and give candidates a chance to ask questions.
Interviewers look for how you break down an unfamiliar problem, not just whether you reach the answer.
Practicing a few problems aloud and reviewing your own past projects are the best preparation.
Good to know
Roles in financial technology often combine domain complexity with fast paced delivery.
Engineers frequently work with payment systems, banking integrations, and distributed platforms at scale.
Collaboration across regions and regulatory environments is common in this field.
Mentorship and technical leadership help define best practices and influence long term strategy.
Career growth
Engineering careers usually progress from individual contributor to senior, staff, and principal levels.
Some engineers move into management and lead teams of five to twenty people.
Others stay on the technical track.
Growth follows demonstrated impact, not tenure alone.
A typical engineering ladder has clear levels with defined expectations for scope, quality, and mentorship.
Moving up usually requires owning outcomes end to end rather than completing assigned tickets.