Principal Software Engineer, Receiver Products

Seattle, WA, United States of America

Category: Engineering
Job ID: R_106221
Job Type: Regular

Job Description:

At Remitly, we believe everyone deserves the freedom to access, move, and manage their money wherever life takes them. Since 2011, we’ve tirelessly delivered on our promise to customers sending money globally, providing secure, simple, and reliable ways to manage their money, ensuring true peace of mind. Whether it’s supporting loved ones back home, growing a business across continents, or pursuing new opportunities abroad, we’re not just here to move money— we’re here to move our global customers forward.
We’re looking for builders, reimaginers, and global thinkers who want to work at the intersection of technology, trust, and transformation. If that’s you and you’re ready to do the most meaningful work of your career—we invite you to join over 2,800 passionate Remitlians worldwide who are united by our vision to transform lives with trusted financial services that transcend borders.

About the Role:

As a Principal Engineer on the Receiver Products team, you will be the technical architect and hands-on builder for a new generation of financial services designed for the people who receive remittances. You'll work at the intersection of zero-to-one product creation and large-scale, highly reliable systems — designing and shipping new capabilities that enable receivers to not just collect funds but to save and spend them safely within their own countries.

This is a rare opportunity for an engineer who loves the energy of a startup, the rigor of regulated financial infrastructure, and the responsibility of building products that directly improve people's lives. You'll set the technical direction, define architectural standards, mentor engineers across multiple teams, and collaborate closely with product, design, compliance, and business partners to make ambitious ideas real.

You Will:

Architect & Build Receiver Financial Services — Lead design and delivery of backend services enabling receivers to save and spend in their home countries. Define APIs, data models, and event-driven architectures built to serve tens of millions of users, owning end-to-end technical decisions on system design, resiliency, and observability.
Integrate with Remitly's Money-Movement Platform — Partner with core platform teams to connect receiver-side capabilities with global disbursement, FX, liquidity, and compliance infrastructure. Maintain end-to-end data consistency and contribute to platform-wide standards for cross-service communication and failure handling.
Champion Security, Trust & Compliance — Embed AML, KYC, and local regulatory requirements from day one. Design with least-privilege access, encryption, and audit trails as defaults; lead threat-modeling and drive vulnerability remediation across your service surface.
Scale with Confidence — Build systems that handle millions of daily active receivers without sacrificing latency or correctness. Establish SLOs, error budgets, and operational tooling; drive a culture of on-call hygiene, runbooks, and blameless post-mortems.
Elevate the Engineering Org — Mentor senior and staff engineers, lead design reviews, and shape the receiver segment's technical roadmap. Author RFCs and ADRs that influence engineering standards, and partner with engineering and product to deliver executable technical plans.

You Have:

Required Qualifications
- 12+ years of software engineering experience, including significant time designing and operating distributed systems at scale.
- Demonstrated experience leading zero-to-one technical efforts — greenfield service design, platform bootstrapping, or new-market technical launches.
- Deep expertise in backend engineering: service oriented architectures, event-driven architectures, RESTful and async APIs, and relational or distributed databases.
- Strong security and compliance sensibility, particularly in regulated industries (fintech, banking, payments, or healthcare).
- Proven ability to influence without authority — driving alignment across engineering, product, legal, and operations stakeholders.
- Exceptional written and verbal communication skills; comfortable presenting to both technical and executive audiences.
Nice to Have
- Experience building financial products for emerging markets (LATAM, Sub-Saharan Africa, South/Southeast Asia, or similar).
- Background in payments infrastructure: card rails, ACH, real-time payment networks, mobile money, or digital wallets.
- Familiarity with AML/KYC frameworks, PCI-DSS, or SOC 2 compliance in a software context.
- Experience working with partner financial institutions, fintechs, or licensed payment processors via API integration.
- Contributions to open-source or engineering community through publications, talks, or tooling.

Compensation Details. The starting base salary range for this position is typically $240,000 -$300,000. In the U.S., Remitly employees are shareholders in our Company and equity is part of our total compensation plan. Your recruiter can share more information about medical benefits offered, as well as other financial benefits and total compensation components offered with this role.

Our Benefits:

Flexible paid time off
Health, dental, and vision + 401k plan with company matching
Paid parental, medical, military and family care leave
Mental Health & Family Forming Benefits
Employee Stock Purchase Plan (ESPP)
Continuing education and travel benefits

Our Connected Work Culture: Driving Innovation, Together

At Remitly, we believe that true innovation sparks when we come together. Our Connected Work Culture fosters dynamic in-person collaboration, where ideas ignite and challenging problems find solutions faster. For corporate team members, we have an in-office expectation of at least 50% of the time monthly, typically achieved by coming in three days a week. This creates a consistent, meaningful overlap that supports team norms and business needs. Managers also have the flexibility to set higher expectations based on their team's specific needs. These intentional in-office moments are vital for deepening relationships, fueling creativity, and ensuring your impact is felt where it matters most.

Remitly is an E-Verify Employer

At Remitly, we are dedicated to ensuring that our workplace offers equal employment opportunities to all employees and candidates, in full compliance with applicable laws and regulations.

Remitly is an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees.

Job Description:

At Remitly, we believe everyone deserves the freedom to access, move, and manage their money wherever life takes them. Since 2011, we’ve tirelessly delivered on our promise to customers sending money globally, providing secure, simple, and reliable ways to manage their money, ensuring true peace of mind. Whether it’s supporting loved ones back home, growing a business across continents, or pursuing new opportunities abroad, we’re not just here to move money— we’re here to move our global customers forward.
We’re looking for builders, reimaginers, and global thinkers who want to work at the intersection of technology, trust, and transformation. If that’s you and you’re ready to do the most meaningful work of your career—we invite you to join over 2,800 passionate Remitlians worldwide who are united by our vision to transform lives with trusted financial services that transcend borders.

About the Role:

As a Principal Engineer on the Receiver Products team, you will be the technical architect and hands-on builder for a new generation of financial services designed for the people who receive remittances. You'll work at the intersection of zero-to-one product creation and large-scale, highly reliable systems — designing and shipping new capabilities that enable receivers to not just collect funds but to save and spend them safely within their own countries.

This is a rare opportunity for an engineer who loves the energy of a startup, the rigor of regulated financial infrastructure, and the responsibility of building products that directly improve people's lives. You'll set the technical direction, define architectural standards, mentor engineers across multiple teams, and collaborate closely with product, design, compliance, and business partners to make ambitious ideas real.

You Will:

Architect & Build Receiver Financial Services — Lead design and delivery of backend services enabling receivers to save and spend in their home countries. Define APIs, data models, and event-driven architectures built to serve tens of millions of users, owning end-to-end technical decisions on system design, resiliency, and observability.
Integrate with Remitly's Money-Movement Platform — Partner with core platform teams to connect receiver-side capabilities with global disbursement, FX, liquidity, and compliance infrastructure. Maintain end-to-end data consistency and contribute to platform-wide standards for cross-service communication and failure handling.
Champion Security, Trust & Compliance — Embed AML, KYC, and local regulatory requirements from day one. Design with least-privilege access, encryption, and audit trails as defaults; lead threat-modeling and drive vulnerability remediation across your service surface.
Scale with Confidence — Build systems that handle millions of daily active receivers without sacrificing latency or correctness. Establish SLOs, error budgets, and operational tooling; drive a culture of on-call hygiene, runbooks, and blameless post-mortems.
Elevate the Engineering Org — Mentor senior and staff engineers, lead design reviews, and shape the receiver segment's technical roadmap. Author RFCs and ADRs that influence engineering standards, and partner with engineering and product to deliver executable technical plans.

You Have:

Required Qualifications
- 12+ years of software engineering experience, including significant time designing and operating distributed systems at scale.
- Demonstrated experience leading zero-to-one technical efforts — greenfield service design, platform bootstrapping, or new-market technical launches.
- Deep expertise in backend engineering: service oriented architectures, event-driven architectures, RESTful and async APIs, and relational or distributed databases.
- Strong security and compliance sensibility, particularly in regulated industries (fintech, banking, payments, or healthcare).
- Proven ability to influence without authority — driving alignment across engineering, product, legal, and operations stakeholders.
- Exceptional written and verbal communication skills; comfortable presenting to both technical and executive audiences.
Nice to Have
- Experience building financial products for emerging markets (LATAM, Sub-Saharan Africa, South/Southeast Asia, or similar).
- Background in payments infrastructure: card rails, ACH, real-time payment networks, mobile money, or digital wallets.
- Familiarity with AML/KYC frameworks, PCI-DSS, or SOC 2 compliance in a software context.
- Experience working with partner financial institutions, fintechs, or licensed payment processors via API integration.
- Contributions to open-source or engineering community through publications, talks, or tooling.

Compensation Details. The starting base salary range for this position is typically $240,000 -$300,000. In the U.S., Remitly employees are shareholders in our Company and equity is part of our total compensation plan. Your recruiter can share more information about medical benefits offered, as well as other financial benefits and total compensation components offered with this role.

Our Benefits:

Flexible paid time off
Health, dental, and vision + 401k plan with company matching
Paid parental, medical, military and family care leave
Mental Health & Family Forming Benefits
Employee Stock Purchase Plan (ESPP)
Continuing education and travel benefits

Our Connected Work Culture: Driving Innovation, Together

At Remitly, we believe that true innovation sparks when we come together. Our Connected Work Culture fosters dynamic in-person collaboration, where ideas ignite and challenging problems find solutions faster. For corporate team members, we have an in-office expectation of at least 50% of the time monthly, typically achieved by coming in three days a week. This creates a consistent, meaningful overlap that supports team norms and business needs. Managers also have the flexibility to set higher expectations based on their team's specific needs. These intentional in-office moments are vital for deepening relationships, fueling creativity, and ensuring your impact is felt where it matters most.

Remitly is an E-Verify Employer

At Remitly, we are dedicated to ensuring that our workplace offers equal employment opportunities to all employees and candidates, in full compliance with applicable laws and regulations.

Remitly is an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees.

What our Remitlians say

Evelyne Kuo

Program Manager - Technical

On the Security & Privacy team, I reimagine what’s possible by going beyond traditional compliance to create a culture where security is part of everyone’s day-to-day — through programs like our champion network, engaging training sessions, and company-wide awareness events that make security approachable and empowering.”

What our Remitlians say

Amara Agbo

Software Development Engineer II

To me, reimagining what’s possible means constantly learning new technologies and applying cutting-edge solutions to build localized systems that scale across currencies, countries, and regulations. The challenges we solve at Remitly don’t just strengthen our platform — they expand financial access for millions of people worldwide. That’s what makes the work both exciting and impactful.”

What our Remitlians say

Rosa Castellon Herrera

Senior Team Manager - QA

Stand for excellence means to me always raising the bar, pushing through discomfort, to deliver our best to our teams and customers every time. We come together as a team to share ideas to develop a rubric that helps us deliver impactful results.”

What our Remitlians say

A photo of a Remitly employee, smiling and looking at the camera.

Stephanie Cameron

Senior Product Manager

On the product team at Remitly, I’m trusted to make decisions that drive real impact—not just for my team, but for the business and our customers. I’m encouraged to take ownership of problems even when they’re outside my immediate scope, to speak up, and to bring the right people together to solve them. Lately, that’s meant working on real-time FX and funding tools that support our treasury team in lowering transaction costs—so we can pass those savings on to our customers. That trust and cross-team collaboration make it easy to stay focused on what really matters in the long run.”

What our Remitlians say

Nadav Yekutiel

Senior Manager - Analytics

At Remitly, diving deep has meant pushing past easy answers to truly understand what our customers need. I’ve seen our analytics teams uncover insights that weren’t obvious at first glance — like identifying hidden friction points in the customer journey that, once solved, improved both experience and trust. This commitment to going beyond the surface makes our recommendations stronger, and it’s a big part of how we deliver meaningful impact across the business.”