Staff Software Engineer

VGS is the world's leader in payment tokenization. Large banks, aspiring fintechs, and growing merchants embed our universal token vault into their technology stack to manage the complexities of payment data tokenization across processors and networks, open banking, card issuance, omnichannel loyalty, PCI compliance, payment orchestration, and more. We empower our clients and partners by tokenizing sensitive payment data, limiting compliance scope, and consolidating payments to unlock revenue and business opportunities. VGS provides processor-agnostic tokenization solutions via secure universal token vaults, iframes, mobile SDKs, tokenization proxies, APIs, and data orchestration tooling to support payment acceptance, card issuance, PII and bank account tokenization, and other payments value-added services. Some of the use cases we enable include multi-processor Network Tokenization, Account Updater, payment orchestration, secure settlement file processing, 3DS, and Risk provider connectivity. We are looking for a product-minded Senior Software Engineer to design, build, and scale mission-critical applications, including multi-processor Network Tokenization, Account Updater, 3DS, and Risk provider connectivity. In this role, you will design resilient systems capable of handling 1,000+ transactions per second (TPS) with absolute precision. You will join a team that values grit, transparency, and the freedom to take full ownership of world-class security products. What you will be doing at VGS… Build Mission-Critical Systems: Design and deploy resilient, distributed systems capable of handling 1,000+ TPS with zero data loss and strict low-latency requirements. Product Collaboration: Partner with Product Management to shape the roadmap. You won’t just execute specs; you’ll help define them by understanding customer pain points. AI-Augmented Lifecycle Ownership: Lead the full AI-integrated SDLC—from vision and requirements to production maintenance—by integrating AI agents into your workflow for rapid prototyping, code generation, and automated testing. Code Quality & Review: Act as a rigorous code reviewer. Maintain a culture of code quality through comprehensive testing, automation, and adherence to rigorous engineering standards. Optimize for Scale and Latency: Tackle complex performance bottlenecks and architect scalable solutions for high-volume payment flows Cross-Functional Partnership: Work seamlessly across organizational boundaries, partnering deeply with Product, Revenue Ops, Cloud Platform, and Security teams to ensure our payments infrastructure aligns with holistic business and operational requirements. Ideal Team Player: Embody our core values of transparency, collaboration, grit, and humility. We go above and beyond for our customers and have fun while doing it. What we are looking for from you (Requirements)... 6+ years of expertise in Java and the Spring Framework (Spring Boot, Spring Security, etc.) building high-scale, production-ready microservices in a SaaS environment. Agentic Engineering: Proven experience incorporating AI agents and LLM-based tools across the SDLC (e.g., using agents for automated code generation, complex refactoring, test suite creation, or documentation). Event-Driven Expertise: Strong practical experience building event-driven distributed architectures using SQS/SNS/Kafka or other message brokers to handle high-volume data streams. Cloud Native Stack: Solid understanding and hands-on experience working with cloud-native architecture, microservices, CI/CD (CircleCI, GitHub Actions, Argo), GitOps, APIs and API Gateway, Docker, Kubernetes (EKS), and AWS services. Observability: Strong experience implementing and leveraging Observability solutions (metrics, logging, tracing) using tools like Open Telemetry, Grafana and Prometheus to diagnose and resolve production issues. Communication: Strong written and verbal communication skills with the ability to navigate technical trade-off discussions. Participate in team-based on-call rotations to maintain system reliability, actively responding to incidents, troubleshooting production issues, and conducting root cause analysis to drive long-term service improvements. Bonus Points… Familiarity with the payment processing ecosystem (PCI DSS, tokenization, card networks, processors). Experience building or fine-tuning custom internal tooling/agents to automate engineering toil. What you get from us... • Flexible work hours and flexible PTO • Competitive health benefits • VGS stock options • 401k plan, with employer matching 4% and immediate vesting (available only for US employees) • Life & disability insurance • Pre-tax flexible spending accounts, dependent and healthcare FSA (available only for US employees) • Global parental leave program • Employee Assistance Program • Home Internet reimbursement • New hire home office set-up allowance • Professional learning reimbursement At VGS, we have a remote-first philosophy because we believe flexibility leads to great work and a healthy work-life balance. That said, if you live within 30 miles of one of our office locations, you’ll be on a hybrid schedule with some in-person time—because we know there’s real value in coming together. We’re not about being in the office every day—but we are about connection, collaboration, and the energy that comes from a great brainstorm, a team lunch, or celebrating a big win in person. We consider applicants without regard to race, color, national origin, sex, age, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, veteran status, marital status, physical or mental disability, or other protected classes under all local, state, and federal laws and ordinances (AA/EOE/W/M/Vet/Disabled). Qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records will be considered for the position in accordance with the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance. Visa Sponsorship . The Company does not provide visa sponsorship for this role. Candidates must be legally authorized to work in the United States at the time of hire and throughout their employment. Individuals with temporary visas such as E, F-1 (including those with OPT or CPT), H-1, H-2, L-1, B, J, or TN, or who need sponsorship for work authorization now or in the future, are not eligible. Please note we are currently only hiring in the following states... Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington, Ontario (Canada), Alberta (Canada), or British Columbia (Canada).