What are the responsibilities and job description for the Staff Software Developer, Backend, Payments position at Coursera?
About Coursera
Coursera was founded in 2012 by Stanford professors Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller to make world-class learning accessible to everyone, everywhere. Today, over 190 million learners and 375 university and industry partners use our platform to gain skills in fields like AI, data science, technology, and business. As a Delaware public benefit corporation and Certified B Corp, we're driven by the belief that learning can transform lives through learning.
Why Join Us
At Coursera, we're looking for inventors, innovators, and lifelong learners ready to shape the future of education. You'll help build global programs and tools that power online learning for millions turning bold ideas into real impact. People who thrive here are customer-first builders who move fast, simplify ruthlessly, and iterate relentlessly on the metrics that matter.
We're a globally distributed team and let you choose the best way you work, whether it's from home, a Coursera hub, or a co-working space near you. Our virtual hiring and onboarding make it easy to join us and start making an impact from anywhere. If you're ready to make a global impact, scale unique products exclusive to Coursera, and expand your career horizons, apply below.
Job Overview:
As a Backend Software Developer on the Payments team, you'll have a real opportunity to innovate, productize, and iterate at startup speed. You will take significant technical ownership for Coursera's Payments platform, building and scaling a checkout & payment experience for consumers. This role will involve both at-scale product innovation and new initiatives in the zero-to-one phase, directly contributing to Coursera's top-line growth and helping bring high-quality, affordable education to millions of learners across the globe. You'll contribute to service architecture, product API development, and data modeling. Our backend developers mostly work with modern Java (16 ), MySQL, DynamoDB, gRPC, GraphQL (DGS), and Kafka within a microservices.
Responsibilities:
- Design and implement scalable systems and infrastructure for the payments platform
- Measure your work thoroughly, analyze results, and generate hypotheses to drive new product changes through A/B testing for payment solutions
- Set up monitoring and testing of your APIs and services to better understand the real-time health of your payment products
- Collaborate with cross-functional product, design, engineering, and services teams to ensure a thorough and thoughtful end-to-end implementation journey for payment features
- Contribute to the conceptualization of new payment solutions with a problem-first, data-driven, and test & iterate approach, ensuring a platform and long-term view
Basic Qualifications:
- 7 years of experience working in a relevant software engineering role
- Expertise in designing highly-scalable and performant micro-services and storage layers using common frameworks, languages, and infrastructure (e.g., Java, MySQL, Cassandra, Solr, Kafka)
- Comfortable working in a fast-moving team environment (we deploy many times a day!)
- Data-driven and strongly motivated by success and learnings through experiments and metrics analysis
- Experience in building and launching successful products, particularly with an understanding of defining and managing APIs and system and data architecture
- Strong commitment to Coursera's mission of transforming lives through learning
Preferred Qualifications:
- You have expertise in managing checkout & payments, including experience with payment gateways, APIs, and SDKs (e.g., Stripe, Braintree, Razorpay)
- You are familiar with mobile payments through Google Play Billing and Apple In-App Purchases
- You understand payment industry standards and regulations (e.g., PCI DSS, PSD2, 3DS 2.0)
Compensation:
Canada
Coursera offers competitive pay and equitable compensation practices. Our job titles may span more than one career level. The targeted hiring base salary range for this role is between $158,400 - 198,000 CAD for all Canada candidates. The actual base pay is dependent upon many factors, including but not limited to prior work experiences, training/education, transferable skills, business needs, and geographical location. The base pay range is subject to change and may be modified in the future. This role may also be eligible for variable pay, equity, and benefits.
US
This role is available in the following US Pay Zones:
US Zone 1: $180,000 - $224,000
US Zone 2: $172,000 - $216,000
US Zone 3: $159,000 - $198,000
US Zone 4: $148,000 - $185,000
At Coursera, we offer competitive, zone-based pay aligned to your location, experience, and role level across four U.S. pay zones. Our total rewards package goes beyond salary, with comprehensive health and wellness benefits, bonus and RSU equity programs, and global perks designed to help you grow and thrive wherever you are.
US Pay Zones:
- US-Z1: Bay Area
- US-Z2: NYC and Seattle Metro
- US-Z3: CA, WA, NY, NJ, CO, CT, DC, GA, IL, MA, MD, OR, RI, TX, VA
- US-Z4: AK, AZ, DE, FL, HI, ID, IN, IA, KS, KY, MI, MN, MO, MT, NC, NV, NH, OH, OK, PA, SC, TN, UT, VT, WI
If this opportunity interests you, you might like these courses on Coursera:
- Object Oriented Java Programming: Data Structures and Beyond Specialization
- The Future of Payment Technologies
- Learning How to Learn
Coursera is an Equal Opportunity Employer committed to building a welcoming and inclusive workplace. We consider all qualified applicants without regard to legally protected characteristics and provide reasonable accommodations upon request at accommodations@coursera.org. Learn more in our CCPA Applicant Notice and GDPR Recruitment Notice.
Coursera is an Equal Employment Opportunity Employer and considers all qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, marital status, national origin, protected veteran status, disability, or any other legally protected class.
If you are an individual with a disability and require a reasonable accommodation to complete any part of the application process, please contact us at accommodations@coursera.org.