Staff Software Engineer

**Circle** Staff Software Engineer; Base up to $250k (absolute max ~$275k) + 10–15% bonus + RSU $800k–$1M (4-yr vest); Remote, United States (West Coast preferred)

**About Company** Circle is a global financial technology company at the forefront of the new internet of money. Our infrastructure—including USDC, a blockchain-based dollar—powers payments, commerce, and financial applications worldwide. We help businesses, institutions, and developers leverage breakthrough blockchain technologies to drive global economic prosperity and digital inclusion.

**About the Role** The Staff Software Engineer is responsible for extending Circle's in-house blockchain systems infrastructure to support the tokenization of the world. The role involves analyzing requirements, procedures, and problems to improve existing systems and modifying systems. You will build and own scalable microservices that are responsible for reliable and secure APIs that transfer value and assets across all blockchain protocols as well as traditional banking protocols. The position requires collaboration with Product and Engineering teams to design, test, and shape Circle features, including developing and documenting system design procedures, testing procedures, and quality standards. The Staff Software Engineer will troubleshoot program and system malfunctions to restore normal functioning, build publicly accessible APIs that make it simple for developers to integrate with complex payment systems, integrate Platform Services with leading banks and financial technologies, consult with management to ensure agreement on system principles, and write the infrastructure to deliver great payment experiences, including data sources (SQL or NoSQL), messaging systems and APIs. Other duties as assigned. Circle is hiring multiple engineers across several teams: Liquidity (banking rails for USDC), Developer Platform / Web3 Services (APIs, wallets, contracts, gas tooling), Circle Payments Network (CPN) (governance, compliance, trust operations), Payments (PSP tools, payouts, merchant acceptance), Core Protocols (USDC, CCTP) (USDC contracts and CCTP protocols), Stablecoin Operations (mint and burn execution, reconciliation), DeFi & Liquidity Partnerships (DeFi market-maker partnerships; USDC adoption), and more.

**Responsibilities** - Extending Circle's in-house blockchain systems infrastructure to support the tokenization of the world - Analyzing requirements, procedures, and problems to improve existing systems and modifying systems - Building and owning scalable microservices that are responsible for reliable and secure APIs that transfer value and assets across all blockchain protocols as well as traditional banking protocols - Collaborating with Product and Engineering teams to design, test, and shape Circle features, including developing and documenting system design procedures, testing procedures, and quality standards - Troubleshooting program and system malfunctions to restore normal functioning - Building publicly accessible APIs that make it simple for developers to integrate with complex payment systems - Integrating Platform Services with leading banks and financial technologies - Consulting with management to ensure agreement on system principles - Writing the infrastructure to deliver great payment experiences, including data sources (SQL or NoSQL), messaging systems and APIs - Other duties as assigned

**Required Skills** A. 7 years minimum professional software development experience in object oriented languages like Go or Java. Java is the primary backend language at Circle, and deep Java experience is preferred. Go is a secondary backend language. Candidates coming solely from C#/Microsoft stacks don’t typically fit well. Candidates must pass a rigorous CodeSignal assessment to proceed. B. Computer Science degree or a closely related field (or foreign equivalent). C. Technical leadership of teams >4 on architecture and system design. D. Expert in one of the domains of API design, payments processing, or blockchains. E. Deep understanding/experience with: architecture, design, and deployment of production-quality, scalable software; Web3, blockchain, smart contract business logic; RESTful API design and development principles; cloud services (AWS, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, etc); container orchestration systems like Kubernetes or EKS, ECS; SQL databases and designing schemas. F. Strong demonstrated expertise and personal commitment to Web3, blockchain, or crypto domains is mandatory.

**Logistical Info** - **Location:** Fully remote, US-based; strong preference for significant overlap with Pacific Time (PT)/West Coast teams. - **Compensation:** $172,500 - $250,000 base + 10-15% yearly bonus + Equity (RSU grant can be more like $800k to $1M vested over 4 years). Equity and total compensation packages are highly flexible for the right talent. - **Number of openings:** Multiple engineers across several teams. - **Other:** Flat, collaborative organization with high feedback velocity; clear expectation of direct and open communication. Hiring for across their core teams, including CPM, liquidity, on-chain business logic, and developer tooling/platform groups.

**Example Candidates** - [Iain Mccown](https://www.linkedin.com/in/iain-mccown-a41157108/) — Recently got hired **Green Flags** - Strong Java backend depth (not C#/Microsoft-stack-only or pure data-engineering) - Real Web3/crypto expertise plus genuine personal buy-in - Seniority well-matched to scope (neither too senior nor too junior) - Stable 5-year trajectory; comfortable with a proctored assessment and ID checks

**Red flags** - Coming from Workday, Visa, Paypal, big banks (e.g., Capital One, JPM) or similar companies, especially without subsequent impactful crypto or product-focused roles - Lack of growth in previous companies - Candidates with multiple consecutive short tenures (under 1 year) across different companies without a clear, documented explanation — sub-1-year stints are a red flag unless justified. - Do not submit candidates who interviewed at or applied to Circle within the last 6–12 months. - Circle runs a proctored CodeSignal assessment with ID verification. AI assistance, copy-paste, or refusing proctoring/ID checks = automatic fail. Candidates not comfortable with proctored testing are not a fit

**Interview Process** 1. CodeSignal assessment (sent by Jordan Richardson after client YES on resume; ~2-week expiry; chase for resends if not received) 2. 1st call with Recruiter at Circle (Jordan) — scheduled only after passing CodeSignal 3. Panel: Technical (system design + pairing), Behavioral (with director & VP), and a meeting with the hiring manager as required.