Backend Infrastructure Engineer Jobs in San Francisco, CA
Backend Infrastructure Engineer jobs in San Francisco are concentrated in SoMa, the Financial District, and Mission Bay, driven by demand across cloud infrastructure, fintech, and enterprise software. Employers actively hiring include nSCALE, ALTRUIST, and Affirm. See the openings below and apply to the ones that match your experience.
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Showing 5 of 14+ Backend Infrastructure Engineer jobs
Affirm is reinventing credit to make it more honest and friendly, giving consumers the flexibility to buy now and pay later without any hidden fees or compounding interest.
We're looking for a Software Engineer to design and build a next-generation reliability platform for Affirm's production systems. You'll blend traditional distributed systems engineering with AI-assisted development to give teams a single place to understand, debug, and improve the health of their services.
This is a highly creative, hands-on role for someone who loves "vibe coding" — rapidly iterating, shipping, and refining with strong intuition— while still holding a very high bar for reliability, quality, and maintainability.
What you will do
Build a centralized reliability command center that gives teams a unified view of system health, risk, and reliability across services and environments.
Create AI agents that can assist with incident triage, root-cause exploration, log/trace summarization, and recommended next actions.
Create delightful developer-facing features and APIs that help engineers explore data, debug issues, and make better decisions.
Use AI-assisted development tools (e.g., Cursor, Claude, Copilot-like tools) as leverage to prototype, refactor, and ship high-quality code quickly.
Own projects end-to-end: requirements, architecture, implementation, testing, rollout, and iteration based on feedback.
Collaborate closely with partner teams (product, infra, data, SRE) to understand pain points and translate them into simple, powerful solutions.
What we look for
- This position requires either equivalent practical experience or a Bachelor's degree in a related field
-
1.5+ years of experience as a software engineer
Strong proficiency in Python, with experience architecting data-intensive applications and robust APIs
Problem-solving and product sense: you care about the "what" and the "why," not just the "how." You are capable of taking ambiguous requirements and rapidly iterating towards a working solution
Hands-on experience with AI-assisted development, such as Cursor, Claude, or similar tools, and enthusiasm for using them to build and ship features faster.
Practical use of LLMs or AI frameworks to enhance automation and guidance with guardrails and citations
Base Pay Grade - L
Equity Grade - 6
Employees new to Affirm typically come in at the start of the pay range. Affirm focuses on providing a simple and transparent pay structure which is based on a variety of factors, including location, experience and job-related skills.
Base pay is part of a total compensation package that may include equity rewards, monthly stipends for health, wellness and tech spending, and benefits (including 100% subsidized medical coverage, dental and vision for you and your dependents.)
USA base pay range (CA, WA, NY, NJ, CT) per year: $165000 - $225000
USA base pay range (all other U.S. states) per year: $146000 - $206000
#LI-Remote
Affirm is proud to be a remote-first company! The majority of our roles are remote and you can work almost anywhere within the country of employment. Affirmers in proximal roles have the flexibility to work remotely, but will occasionally be required to work out of their assigned Affirm office. A limited number of roles remain office-based due to the nature of their job responsibilities.
We're extremely proud to offer competitive benefits that are anchored to our core value of people come first. Some key highlights of our benefits package include:
- Health care coverage - Affirm covers all premiums for all levels of coverage for you and your dependents
- Flexible Spending Wallets - generous stipends for spending on Technology, Food, various Lifestyle needs, and family forming expenses
- Time off - competitive vacation and holiday schedules allowing you to take time off to rest and recharge
- ESPP - An employee stock purchase plan enabling you to buy shares of Affirm at a discount
We believe It's On Us to provide an inclusive interview experience for all, including people with disabilities. We are happy to provide reasonable accommodations to candidates in need of individualized support during the hiring process.
[For U.S. positions that could be performed in Los Angeles or San Francisco] Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance and Los Angeles Fair Chance Initiative for Hiring Ordinance, Affirm will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.
By clicking "Submit Application," you acknowledge that you have read Affirm's Global Candidate Privacy Notice and hereby freely and unambiguously give informed consent to the collection, processing, use, and storage of your personal information as described therein.
Affirm is reinventing credit to make it more honest and friendly, giving consumers the flexibility to buy now and pay later without any hidden fees or compounding interest.
We're looking for a Software Engineer to design and build a next-generation reliability platform for Affirm's production systems. You'll blend traditional distributed systems engineering with AI-assisted development to give teams a single place to understand, debug, and improve the health of their services.
This is a highly creative, hands-on role for someone who loves "vibe coding" — rapidly iterating, shipping, and refining with strong intuition— while still holding a very high bar for reliability, quality, and maintainability.
What you will do
Build a centralized reliability command center that gives teams a unified view of system health, risk, and reliability across services and environments.
Create AI agents that can assist with incident triage, root-cause exploration, log/trace summarization, and recommended next actions.
Create delightful developer-facing features and APIs that help engineers explore data, debug issues, and make better decisions.
Use AI-assisted development tools (e.g., Cursor, Claude, Copilot-like tools) as leverage to prototype, refactor, and ship high-quality code quickly.
Own projects end-to-end: requirements, architecture, implementation, testing, rollout, and iteration based on feedback.
Collaborate closely with partner teams (product, infra, data, SRE) to understand pain points and translate them into simple, powerful solutions.
What we look for
- This position requires either equivalent practical experience or a Bachelor's degree in a related field
-
1.5+ years of experience as a software engineer
Strong proficiency in Python, with experience architecting data-intensive applications and robust APIs
Problem-solving and product sense: you care about the "what" and the "why," not just the "how." You are capable of taking ambiguous requirements and rapidly iterating towards a working solution
Hands-on experience with AI-assisted development, such as Cursor, Claude, or similar tools, and enthusiasm for using them to build and ship features faster.
Practical use of LLMs or AI frameworks to enhance automation and guidance with guardrails and citations
Base Pay Grade - L
Equity Grade - 6
Employees new to Affirm typically come in at the start of the pay range. Affirm focuses on providing a simple and transparent pay structure which is based on a variety of factors, including location, experience and job-related skills.
Base pay is part of a total compensation package that may include equity rewards, monthly stipends for health, wellness and tech spending, and benefits (including 100% subsidized medical coverage, dental and vision for you and your dependents.)
USA base pay range (CA, WA, NY, NJ, CT) per year: $165000 - $225000
USA base pay range (all other U.S. states) per year: $146000 - $206000
#LI-Remote
Affirm is proud to be a remote-first company! The majority of our roles are remote and you can work almost anywhere within the country of employment. Affirmers in proximal roles have the flexibility to work remotely, but will occasionally be required to work out of their assigned Affirm office. A limited number of roles remain office-based due to the nature of their job responsibilities.
We're extremely proud to offer competitive benefits that are anchored to our core value of people come first. Some key highlights of our benefits package include:
- Health care coverage - Affirm covers all premiums for all levels of coverage for you and your dependents
- Flexible Spending Wallets - generous stipends for spending on Technology, Food, various Lifestyle needs, and family forming expenses
- Time off - competitive vacation and holiday schedules allowing you to take time off to rest and recharge
- ESPP - An employee stock purchase plan enabling you to buy shares of Affirm at a discount
We believe It's On Us to provide an inclusive interview experience for all, including people with disabilities. We are happy to provide reasonable accommodations to candidates in need of individualized support during the hiring process.
[For U.S. positions that could be performed in Los Angeles or San Francisco] Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance and Los Angeles Fair Chance Initiative for Hiring Ordinance, Affirm will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.
By clicking "Submit Application," you acknowledge that you have read Affirm's Global Candidate Privacy Notice and hereby freely and unambiguously give informed consent to the collection, processing, use, and storage of your personal information as described therein.
See All 14 Backend Infrastructure Engineer Jobs in San Francisco
Find roles in San Francisco that match your experience and apply in just a few clicks.
Find JobsBackend Infrastructure Engineer Job Market in San Francisco
Who's Hiring
- nSCALE2N
- ALTRUIST2
- Affirm1
- Quanata1
- Rippling1
Top Industries Hiring
- Technology & Software8
- Insurance1
- Banking & Financial Services1
Backend Infrastructure Engineer Jobs in San Francisco: Frequently Asked Questions
How do I get a backend infrastructure engineer job in San Francisco?
Target San Francisco's densest hiring corridors: SoMa and Mission Bay for cloud-native startups and growth-stage companies, and the Financial District for fintech and enterprise platforms. Hands-on experience with Kubernetes, Terraform, or distributed systems gets attention fastest here. Contributing to open-source infrastructure projects and networking through local Meetup groups focused on DevOps or site reliability also gives candidates a concrete edge in this market.
Which companies hire backend infrastructure engineers in San Francisco?
San Francisco backend infrastructure engineer roles are posted by nSCALE, ALTRUIST, and Affirm and others right now, based on current listings on Migrate Mate as of June 2026. The city's mix of high-growth startups in SoMa and established fintech and enterprise software firms in the Financial District means openings appear across a wide range of company sizes and infrastructure stacks.
Are there remote backend infrastructure engineer jobs in San Francisco?
Yes, though backend infrastructure engineering is more remote-friendly than hands-on roles, since most of the work involves cloud platforms and code rather than physical hardware. About 75% of backend infrastructure engineer openings tied to San Francisco are remote or hybrid as of June 2026, with fully remote positions most common at cloud-native and SaaS companies headquartered in the city.
How can I get a backend infrastructure engineer job in San Francisco with little or no experience?
The most realistic entry path in San Francisco is through a junior site reliability engineer or platform engineering associate role at a mid-stage startup in SoMa or Mission Bay, where teams are often small enough to hire candidates who can demonstrate hands-on lab work or personal projects. Building a portfolio on GitHub showing Terraform configurations, CI/CD pipelines, or containerized deployments gets noticed by San Francisco engineering managers faster than credentials alone.
Which industries hire the most backend infrastructure engineers in San Francisco?
Most backend infrastructure engineer openings in San Francisco sit in Technology & Software, Insurance, and Banking & Financial Services, per current listings on Migrate Mate as of June 2026. San Francisco's density of cloud-native software companies, financial technology platforms, and enterprise SaaS firms creates consistent demand for engineers who can build and operate large-scale distributed systems.
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