Staff Software Engineer, Bitkey

Company Description

Block is one company built from many blocks, all united by the same purpose of economic empowerment. The blocks that form our foundational teams — People, Finance, Counsel, Hardware, Information Security, Platform Infrastructure Engineering, and more — provide support and guidance at the corporate level. They work across business groups and around the globe, spanning time zones and disciplines to develop inclusive People policies, forecast finances, give legal counsel, safeguard systems, nurture new initiatives, and more. Every challenge creates possibilities, and we need different perspectives to see them all. Bring yours to Block.

Job Description

Bitkey sits within the Proto team. Proto's purpose is to accelerate the world’s transition to a more open economy by making products that increase access and independence for everyone. The first two initiatives we’ve identified that represent the biggest impact to this purpose are in the Bitcoin space with Bitcoin mining and Bitkey, a self custody Bitcoin wallet. While we’re starting there, we don’t believe the need for tools to increase one’s independence is limited to bitcoin or the financial space. One principle across everything we do in Proto is open development – show and tell. We develop products in the open, you can read more about them at bitkey.build and mining.build.

We are looking to hire an engineer to help our team optimize for finding product market fit in a technically complex environment. A successful candidate has worked in a variety of technical lead capacities and is curious to solve problems no matter where they are in the software stack. While Bitcoin or cryptographic expertise is a significant bonus, it is not a requirement of this role.  It is a requirement to be passionate about this burgeoning technology and for the candidate to have a history of being successful in ambiguous or zero-to-one environments. This role will be crucial to product development and will collaborate across a variety of disciplines. 

The person who takes this role will help us continue to refine our architecture from first principles, help define engineering best practices and will leverage their expertise to help us build new products around Bitcoin. It's just as important that this person help us figure out what not to spend time on - and with this in mind, the wrong hire in this role could be worse than no hire at all. The scope is wide -- nothing is off-limits and whoever is in this role will need to understand the whole product offering. This role is also hands-on -- we need someone who has the breadth to develop strategy and the depth to help realize it in practice. 

This role requires heavy collaboration with all of our disciplines including mobile, server, web, firmware, and security and will be critical to improving the success of our engineers and overall product.

You Will

• Develop primitives that we are able to share across multiple platforms

• Architect our systems to be adaptive to our core primitives, solving for current problems of the product, while also keeping an eye on the future

• Help develop the product roadmap in partnership with other stakeholders across business, marketing, product, design and legal

• Maintain a high quality bar for our engineering team by ensuring we have the right visibility into tracing, metrics, logging, and alerting

• Work with other Block bitcoin, foundational and security teams to develop strategies for how we leverage existing or build new tooling to support our products.

• Be a champion for engineering excellence by improving our processes

Qualifications

You Have:

• 12+ years of experience directly working as an individual contributor

• Worked with various teams to develop software approaches and aligned partner teams to advance the work

• Championed and executed on initiatives to uplift engineering organizations

• Navigated architectural decisions that weigh trade-offs between building your own solution or buying something that suits your needs

• Identified bottlenecks in systems, quantified their impact, and prioritized effectively 

• Bonus: Experience in security, cryptography, or bitcoin

• Bonus: Experience building in a zero-to-one environment where you’ve had to trailblaze your own path

Technologies we use and teach:

• Kotlin Multiplatform

• Rust

• Swift

• AWS

• Docker

• DataDog

• DynamoDB

Additional Information

Block takes a market-based approach to pay, and pay may vary depending on your location. U.S. locations are categorized into one of four zones based on a cost of labor index for that geographic area. The successful candidate’s starting pay will be determined based on job-related skills, experience, qualifications, work location, and market conditions. These ranges may be modified in the future.

Zone A: USD $239,600 - USD $359,400
Zone B: USD $239,600 - USD $359,400
Zone C: USD $239,600 - USD $359,400
Zone D: USD $239,600 - USD $359,400

To find a location’s zone designation, please refer to this resource. If a location of interest is not listed, please speak with a recruiter for additional information. 

Full-time employee benefits include the following:

• Healthcare coverage (Medical, Vision and Dental insurance)
• Health Savings Account and Flexible Spending Account
• Retirement Plans including company match 
• Employee Stock Purchase Program
• Wellness programs, including access to mental health, 1:1 financial planners, and a monthly wellness allowance 
• Paid parental and caregiving leave
• Paid time off (including 12 paid holidays)
• Paid sick leave (1 hour per 26 hours worked (max 80 hours per calendar year to the extent legally permissible) for non-exempt employees and covered by our Flexible Time Off policy for exempt employees) 
• Learning and Development resources
• Paid Life insurance, AD&D, and disability benefits 

These benefits are further detailed in Block's policies. This role is also eligible to participate in Block's equity plan subject to the terms of the applicable plans and policies, and may be eligible for a sign-on bonus. Sales roles may be eligible to participate in a commission plan subject to the terms of the applicable plans and policies. Pay and benefits are subject to change at any time, consistent with the terms of any applicable compensation or benefit plans.

We’re working to build a more inclusive economy where our customers have equal access to opportunity, and we strive to live by these same values in building our workplace. Block is a proud equal opportunity employer. We work hard to evaluate all employees and job applicants consistently, without regard to race, color, religion, gender, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, pregnancy, gender expression or identity, sexual orientation, citizenship, or any other legally protected class. 

We believe in being fair, and are committed to an inclusive interview experience, including providing reasonable accommodations to disabled applicants throughout the recruitment process. We encourage applicants to share any needed accommodations with their recruiter, who will treat these requests as confidentially as possible. Want to learn more about what we’re doing to build a workplace that is fair and square? Check out our I+D page.

Additionally, we consider qualified applicants with criminal histories for employment on our team, assessing candidates in a manner consistent with the requirements of the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance.

Block, Inc. (NYSE: SQ) is a global technology company with a focus on financial services. Made up of Square, Cash App, Spiral, TIDAL, and TBD, we build tools to help more people access the economy. Square helps sellers run and grow their businesses with its integrated ecosystem of commerce solutions, business software, and banking services. With Cash App, anyone can easily send, spend, or invest their money in stocks or Bitcoin. Spiral (formerly Square Crypto) builds and funds free, open-source Bitcoin projects. Artists use TIDAL to help them succeed as entrepreneurs and connect more deeply with fans. TBD is building an open developer platform to make it easier to access Bitcoin and other blockchain technologies without having to go through an institution.

While there is no specific deadline to apply for this role, on average, U.S. open roles are posted for 70 days before being filled by a successful candidate.