Senior Engineering Manager, Payments
About Polygon Labs
Polygon Labs is a global blockchain payments company building and operating infrastructure to move money instantly, reliably, and at internet scale, with the mission to move all money onchain. It is building the Polygon Open Money Stack, an open and integrated stack of services and technologies to instantly and reliably move money anywhere, and put it to work. Its infrastructure has facilitated trillions of dollars in onchain value transfer and supported millions of transactions daily for some of the globe's largest banks, fintechs, enterprises, and consumer applications.
Your Role
Do you want to build the future of payments from the ground up? As a Senior Engineering Manager – Payments, you will lead the team responsible for realizing Polygon Labs’ vision of On-Chain Money and the Open Money Stack. You will be at the forefront of transforming Polygon Labs into a true payments platform - designing, architecting, and delivering a modern payment system that brings fiat and digital assets together in powerful, enterprise-ready ways.
This is a rare opportunity to build a greenfield payments platform at the intersection of fintech and blockchain - unconstrained by legacy architecture, empowered by automation, and surrounded by a collaborative, fast-moving, and remote-first team.
Your Responsibilities
Lead the buildout of a modern payments application from the ground up, working closely with the Head of Payments Engineering.
Manage and mentor engineers and DevOps teams focused on delivering scalable and reliable payment capabilities.
Collaborate cross-functionally with Product, Compliance, and Infrastructure teams to define and deliver enterprise-grade payment solutions.
Drive architecture and development across both fiat and blockchain-based payment systems.
Instill a strong engineering culture focused on automation, ownership, security, and operational excellence.
Stay ahead of the curve on blockchain innovation in the payments space and integrate emerging standards into the product roadmap.
What You’ll Need
10+ years of experience in payments engineering, ideally spanning both traditional finance and digital assets.
Proven experience managing senior engineering teams and building high-throughput, low-latency, mission-critical transaction systems.
Deep expertise in designing microservices-based architectures, including service mesh and event-driven systems (e.g. Kafka, Axon, cloud-native pub/sub).
Proficient in one or more backend languages (Java, Go, Python) and frameworks like Spring Boot, with strong understanding of active thread management for synchronous flows.
Experience with both synchronous and asynchronous integration patterns (REST, gRPC, pub-sub) for enterprise-scale partner integrations.
Strong architectural understanding of cloud-native systems on AWS and/or GCP, including edge networking (e.g. CDN, API gateways) through to internal subnet topology.
Hands-on experience with database and caching technologies including PostgreSQL, MongoDB, ElasticSearch, Redis, and Hazelcast.
Solid understanding of data architecture patterns, including data lakes, data warehouses (e.g. Snowflake, Databricks) and event-based ingestion pipelines.
Strong understanding of both centralized and decentralized payment infrastructure, including traditional rails (ACH, SEPA, card networks) and blockchain-based flows (wallets, custody, stablecoins).
Track record of delivering compliant, secure systems in regulated environments, with an understanding of KYC, AML, and other key controls.
Excellent communication and leadership skills, with the ability to align and influence technical and non-technical stakeholders.
Preferred Qualifications
Experience working in fintech, neobanks, or real-time transaction processing environments.
Experience with stablecoins, CBDCs, or tokenized assets.
Hands-on exposure to Ethereum or other smart contract platforms.
Experience working with global regulators or participating in payment certification processes.
Deep knowledge of cloud-native, event-driven, and distributed system architectures.
Passion for automation, developer productivity, and engineering excellence.
Polygon Labs Perks
The goal of the Polygon Labs total rewards program is to support the health and well-being of you and your family. Our comprehensive compensation plan includes the following benefits for our full-time employees:
Remote first global workforce
Industry-leading Medical, Dental and Vision health insurance*
Company matching 401k with 3% match*
$1,500 Home Office Set Up Allowance (lifetime max)
$75 Monthly internet or phone reimbursement
Flexible Time Off
Company issued laptop
Egg freezing, mental health, and employee wellness benefits
*In certain countries medical, dental and vision is fully covered for employees & their dependents. This is country and plan specific.
*401k is for United States employees only
Polygon Labs is committed to a diverse and inclusive workplace and is an equal opportunity employer. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, national origin, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, protected veteran status, disability, age, or other legally protected status.
Polygon Labs is committed to treating all people in a way that allows them to maintain their dignity and independence. We believe in integration and equal opportunity. Accommodations are available throughout the recruitment process and applicants with a disability may request to be accommodated throughout the recruitment process. We will work with all applicants to accommodate their individual accessibility needs.
If you think you have what it takes, but don’t necessarily meet every single point on the job description, please still get in touch. We’d love to have a chat and see if you could be a great fit.
Learn More about Polygon Labs
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