Staff Engineer

Overview

Shift4 (NYSE: FOUR) is boldly redefining commerce by simplifying complex payments ecosystems across the world. As the leader in commerce-enabling technology, Shift4 powers billions of transactions annually for hundreds of thousands of businesses in virtually every industry. For more information, visit www.shift4.com.

We’re looking for an experienced and driven Staff Engineer to join our technology leadership team. In this role, you’ll lead key cross-organizational initiatives, provide technical guidance, and shape engineering practices that power our scalable, business-critical systems in the online transactions and payments space.

You’ll play a pivotal role in leading technical transformation, supporting developers, and elevating the platform with a long-term view — all while staying hands-on where it matters.

Responsibilities

Technical Leadership

• Drive cross-R&D initiatives such as platform modernization, performance optimization, developer velocity improvements, and major tech migrations (e.g., Java upgrades).
• Serve as a technical authority across R&D – setting standards, offering design guidance, and mentoring teams on best practices.
• Own and evolve shared internal libraries (e.g., credorax-commons) to ensure maintainability, reuse, and adoption.
• Lead proof-of-concepts and evaluate emerging technologies that can unlock scale, stability, or innovation (e.g., Aerospike, AI-powered dev tools).
  
  

• Collaborate with TechOps and platform teams to improve tooling, deployment, and observability capabilities.
• Define and maintain standards for CI/CD workflows and automation (GitLab pipelines).
• Introduce and manage code quality and static analysis tools to uphold engineering excellence across teams.
  
  

• Provide matrix-style leadership, guiding engineers across teams (not a direct HR manager).
• Foster a culture of technical collaboration, shared learning, and mentorship.
• Support effective Agile processes, with a focus on continuous delivery, autonomy, and technical ownership.
  
  

• 7+ years of backend engineering experience with Java and Spring (Spring Boot) – required.
• Proven track record in technical leadership roles, guiding architectural decisions, and driving change across teams.
• Experience building and maintaining high-performance, distributed systems in production.
• Deep understanding of DevOps workflows, deployment pipelines, and platform tooling.
• Familiarity with technologies like RabbitMQ, Hazelcast, Aerospike – an advantage.
• Strong interpersonal skills – able to influence, guide, and inspire technical teams.
• Comfortable balancing strategic vision with hands-on technical execution.