Scribd, Inc. · 4 days ago
Staff Backend Engineer – Payments & Billing
Los Angeles, CA
Full-time
Hybrid
Lead/Staff
$167K/yr - $260K/yr
8+ years expScribd Inc. is on a mission to spark human curiosity through its diverse products. They are seeking a Staff Backend Engineer to lead the architecture and implementation of their payments and billing systems, ensuring secure and efficient financial operations across their services.
AudiobooksBooksEBooksFile SharingNewsPodcastPublishing
Responsibilities
Lead the technical architecture and implementation of Scribd’s payments and billing systems, the backbone of our subscription business
Design, build, and operate backend services that power subscription payments at global scale
Own billing lifecycle, global payments, invoicing, reconciliation, and financial reliability—integrating with multiple providers (Stripe, Adyen, Braintree) and supporting international currencies and local methods
Ensure compliance and security of financial systems through PCI DSS, tokenization, encryption, and secure data handling
Foster a culture of technical excellence while driving scalable, resilient, and observable financial systems that enable teams to move fast, simplify complexity, and deliver revenue with confidence
Modernize legacy systems and eliminate technical debt to improve velocity and scalability
Partner with Product, Finance, Risk, Platform, and Analytics to deliver secure, reliable financial flows, leveraging data, metrics, and telemetry to uncover trends, resolve anomalies, and guide the team with clarity and foresight
Mentor engineers, shape cross-team technical strategy, and tackle some of the hardest scaling and security challenges in the company
Qualification
Required
8+ years of backend engineering experience, with deep expertise in building and scaling distributed systems for financial or mission-critical workloads
Strong foundation in data modeling, transactional consistency, and high-throughput architectures, with hands-on SQL (e.g., MySQL, PostgreSQL) and familiarity with NoSQL and caching
Skilled in observability and reliability practices: defining SLOs, implementing metrics/alerts, debugging distributed systems, and leading incident response
Strong coding ability in at least one modern backend language such as Ruby (preferred), Java, Go, or Python, with a focus on clean, maintainable, and secure code
Proven track record of technical leadership: setting architectural direction, mentoring engineers, and driving large-scale migrations or modernization efforts
Communicates clearly and collaborates across product, finance, risk, and platform teams, influencing both technical and business decisions
Contributes to cross-team initiatives (mentoring, architecture review groups, knowledge sharing) that shape Scribd's engineering culture
Preferred
Strong coding ability in Ruby
Deep experience designing and operating payment or billing systems
Integrated with major payment service providers (Stripe, Adyen, Braintree, PayPal) and managed multi-currency or local payment methods
Knowledge of compliance and security standards (PCI DSS, encryption, tokenization)
Understand fraud prevention strategies (chargebacks, retries, card fingerprinting, abuse detection)
Led large-scale migrations between payment providers or billing systems with minimal customer impact
Benefits
Healthcare Insurance Coverage (Medical/Dental/Vision): 100% paid for employees
12 weeks paid parental leave
Short-term/long-term disability plans
401k/RSP matching
Onboarding stipend for home office peripherals + accessories
Learning & Development allowance
Learning & Development programs
Quarterly stipend for Wellness, WiFi, etc.
Mental Health support & resources
Free subscription to the Scribd Inc. suite of products
Referral Bonuses
Book Benefit
Sabbaticals
Company-wide events
Team engagement budgets
Vacation & Personal Days
Paid Holidays (+ winter break)
Flexible Sick Time
Volunteer Day
Company-wide Employee Resource Groups and programs that foster an inclusive and diverse workplace.
Access to AI Tools: We provide free access to best-in-class AI tools, empowering you to boost productivity, streamline workflows, and accelerate bold innovation.
Company
Scribd, Inc.
We're on a mission to spark human curiosity.
201-500 employees
H1B Sponsorship
Scribd, Inc. has a track record of offering H1B sponsorships. Please note that this does not
guarantee sponsorship for this specific role. Below presents additional info for your
reference. (Data Powered by US Department of Labor)
Distribution of Different Job Fields Receiving Sponsorship
Represents job field similar to this job
Trends of Total Sponsorships
2025 (5)
2024 (2)
2023 (8)
2022 (3)
2021 (12)
2020 (15)
Funding
Current Stage
Late StageTotal Funding
$106.75MKey Investors
Spectrum EquityKhosla VenturesCRV
2019-11-25Series E· $58M
2015-01-02Series D· $23M
2011-01-18Series C· $12M
Leadership Team
Tony Grimminck
Chief Executive Officer
Adrian Lienhard
VP, Infrastructure Engineering
Recent News
2026-01-05
TechCrunch
2025-12-11
Company data provided by crunchbase