Staff Engineer - Fraud Prevention

Who we are: We are a leader in fraud prevention and AML compliance. Our platform uses device intelligence, behavior biometrics, machine learning, and AI to stop fraud before it happens. Today, over 300 banks, retailers, and fintechs worldwide use Sardine to stop identity fraud, payment fraud, account takeovers, and social engineering scams. We have raised $145M from world-class investors, including Andreessen Horowitz, Activant, Visa, Experian, FIS, and Google Ventures. Our culture: We have hubs in the Bay Area, NYC, Austin, Toronto, and São Paulo. However, we maintain a remote-first work culture. #WorkFromAnywhere We hire talented, self-motivated individuals with extreme ownership and high growth orientation. We value performance and not hours worked. We believe you shouldn't have to miss your family dinner, your kid's school play, friends get-together, or doctor's appointments for the sake of adhering to an arbitrary work schedule. Location: Remote - USA or Canada - Given the strategic nature of this role, we expect a degree of flexibility for somewhat regular in-person meetings with our leadership team in San Francisco, Berkeley. From Home / Beach / Mountain / Cafe / Anywhere! We are a remote-first company with a globally distributed team. You can find your productive zone and work from there. About the Role You will serve as the technical steward and platform architect for both our Consumer Fraud and Business Fraud engineering teams. This position involves driving technical strategy, optimizing mission-critical infrastructure, mentoring engineers, and assuming broad ownership of a platform that processes massive volumes of data in real-time. What you’ll be doing: Act as the overarching technical leader for multiple teams, partnering with stakeholders to unify platform strategy. Architect, design, and optimize ultra-low-latency backend services and a high-throughput rules engine. Design optimal data access patterns, partitioning strategies, and caching layers across our complex, multi-cloud database ecosystem. Develop robust pipelines for massive parallel execution of real-time feature computations and aggregations. Play a pivotal role in shaping engineering culture, mentoring senior engineers, and driving high technical standards from conception to delivery. What you’ll need: 7+ years of software engineering experience, with a proven track record operating at a Staff, Principal, or Lead Architect level. Deep expertise in building highly available, distributed systems with strict ultra-low latency. Hands-on experience working with stream processing frameworks (e.g., Kafka, Flink, SQS, PubSub) in production environments. Advanced proficiency in polyglot persistence, with experience tuning data models across Document, Wide-Column, and Relational databases. A strong platform engineering mindset focused on reliability, observability, and developer velocity. Proficiency in communicating complex architectural concepts and driving cross-team consensus. Benefits we offer: Generous compensation in cash and equity Early exercise for all options, including pre-vested Work from anywhere: Remote-first Culture Flexible paid time off and Year-end break Health insurance, dental, and vision coverage for employees and dependents - US and Canada specific 4% matching in 401k / RRSP - US and Canada specific MacBook Pro delivered to your door One-time stipend to set up a home office — desk, chair, screen, etc. Monthly meal stipend Monthly social meet-up stipend Annual health and wellness stipend Annual Learning stipend Join a fast-growing company with world-class professionals from around the world. If you are seeking a meaningful career, you found the right place, and we would love to hear from you. To learn more about how we process your personal information and your rights in regards to your personal information as an applicant and Sardine employee, please visit our Applicant and Worker Privacy Notice .