Lead Software Engineer

Department: Engineer

Location: Palo Alto

Employment Type: FullTime

About Nu

Nu serves more than 140 million customers, guided by a mission to fight complexity and empower people. The company has been leading an industry transformation through innovative products and human-centered services.

Proprietary technology and data at scale power Nu’s digital platform, built to promote financial access, advancement, and transparency. Its business model thrives on customer love and lower costs, feeding a flywheel of growth and profitability.

Visit our Institutional Page

About the Role

As a Software Engineer, you will join a small, senior group shaping the core technology that powers Nubank globally — from data and experimentation platforms to shared services that support products across multiple business units and geographies.

The work is highly 0→1, with a strong emphasis on long‑term impact, technical quality, and global scale rather than one‑off features.

You'll be responsible for

• Designing, building, and operating distributed backend services and APIs that support core platforms used by multiple product teams worldwide.

• Owning services end‑to‑end — from architecture and implementation to observability, reliability, and continuous improvement in production.

• Defining clear contracts, SLOs, and guardrails so internal teams can safely build on top of the platforms you own.

• Collaborating closely with data, ML, and infrastructure engineers to turn models, datasets, and lower‑level components into robust, easy‑to‑use internal products.

• Leading 0→1 and modernization initiatives, making pragmatic trade‑offs and setting technical standards for high‑leverage systems.

We are looking for a person who has

Required

• Solid experience as a backend or platform engineer, owning production systems end‑to‑end (design, implementation, operations, and ongoing evolution).

• Proven track record working with distributed systems at scale and building APIs or microservices on modern cloud infrastructure.

• Experience building or supporting platform‑level services where many teams depend on your systems for their day‑to‑day work.

• Comfort operating in ambiguous, fast‑changing contexts and driving 0→1 technical decisions with a long‑term mindset.

• Strong collaboration and communication skills, including working effectively with engineers across disciplines and locations.

Nice to have

• Experience with data, ML, or AI‑related infrastructure (e.g., experimentation, model serving, or ML platforms) used by multiple product teams.

• Exposure to highly regulated or safety‑critical domains (such as financial infrastructure or crypto) where reliability, compliance, and auditability are essential.

• Background in fast‑growing global tech companies, designing systems that work across products, markets, and regulatory environments.

• Experience mentoring other engineers and contributing to raising the engineering bar through reviews, discussions, and hiring.

Location & Work Model

• Location: Palo Alto, United States.

• Work model: Hybrid 2–3 times/week – our hybrid work model brings us to the office at least twice a week, on strategic days designed to maximize team connection and collaboration. For more details, visit https://building.nubank.com/nu-hybrid-work-model/.

Our Benefits 

Our benefits program is designed to support your well‑being and performance while you enjoy life and work. For roles based in the United States, our current benefits include:

• Opportunity of earning equity at Nu

• Total compensation includes base salary, RSUs and benefits. Base salary range: $230,000 - $276,000

• Medical Insurance

• Dental and Vision Insurance

• Life Insurance and AD&D

• Extended maternity and paternity leaves

• Nucleo – our learning platform of courses

• NuLanguage – our language learning program

• NuCare – our mental health and wellness assistance program

• 401K

• Saving Plans – Health Saving Account and Flexible Spending Account

• Work‑from‑home Allowance

• Relocation Assistance Package, if applicable

Explore how we build technology at Nubank: building.nubank.com.br, youtube.com/@building.nubank, and our podcast on Spotify.

Our recruitment process may involve the use of artificial intelligence–enabled tools, such as automated interview transcription and analysis, to support the evaluation process. Artificial intelligence is not used to make final hiring decisions; all decisions are made by human reviewers.

To maintain a consistent and fair process for every candidate, Nu does not provide individualized technical feedback. See how our policy works here