Remote Founding Engineer Jobs in Mountain View, CA

PayOS | Remote | $150K–$200K + Meaningful Equity
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The Mission
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AI is going to fundamentally change how commerce and payments work.
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PayOS is building the payments infrastructure for that future.
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We’re already working with some of the largest companies in the payments ecosystem, and we’re looking for an exceptional Founding Payments Engineer to help build what comes next.
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This is not a role where you’ll inherit a mature system and work through a backlog.
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You’ll own a major part of the company from the ground up.
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The Opportunity
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We’re looking for someone who really knows payments.
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Not just the APIs. Not just the architecture diagrams.
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Someone who understands how money actually moves, what happens when things break, and how networks, processors, acquirers, issuers, and merchants really operate.
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You’ll own critical payments infrastructure at PayOS, working directly with the founders, customers, and partners to take complex payment capabilities from idea to production.
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You’ll have the autonomy to identify problems, design solutions, build them, ship them, and see customers use what you created.
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Over time, we want you to become the GM of what you build, not simply the engineer responsible for it.
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You might be the person we’re looking for if...
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You’ve spent years deep inside payments and know at least one part of the ecosystem exceptionally well.
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Maybe that’s:
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• Networks: Visa, Mastercard, network APIs, ISO 8583/20022, tokenization, certification
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• Acquiring / Processing: authorization, routing, merchant onboarding, interchange, disputes, settlement
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• Issuing: authorization systems, card programs, BIN sponsorship, network connectivity
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• Merchant Payments: building payment products businesses depend on every day
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You don’t need to have done all of these.
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We care much more about depth than checking every box.
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If you’ve spent five years becoming exceptionally good at one corner of payments and want the opportunity to learn and own the rest, we want to talk to you.
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What You’ll Do
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Own Payments
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Architect and build critical payment systems from the ground up. You’ll make decisions that can shape the architecture of PayOS for years.
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Build Things Customers Actually Need
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You’ll work directly with customers and partners, understand their problems, and turn those problems into products.
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Go Deep
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Payments has endless edge cases. You’ll work through difficult integrations, specifications, production issues, and ecosystem constraints where the answer isn’t sitting in documentation.
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Own the Outcome
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Your job doesn’t end when the code ships. You’ll help get products into customers’ hands, understand whether they’re working, and keep improving them.
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Build With AI
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We use the best AI tools available to dramatically increase what a small engineering team can accomplish. We want engineers who combine these tools with deep technical judgment and domain expertise.
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Who Thrives Here
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You want ownership
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You don’t want to be employee #4,000 working on one endpoint.
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You want your fingerprints all over something.
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You’re comfortable without a playbook
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At an early-stage company, sometimes the problem isn’t defined yet. You can go from ambiguity → understanding → architecture → production without waiting for someone to tell you every step.
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You’re obsessed with getting things right
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Payments infrastructure has to work.
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You think naturally about reliability, idempotency, auditability, failure modes, security, and what happens at 2 AM when something goes wrong.
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You care about the business
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The best engineers here won’t just understand the system. They’ll understand the customer, the economics, and why we’re building something in the first place.
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You move fast
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We’re an ambitious, high-intensity team. We care deeply about what we’re building and move with urgency.
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This isn’t the right environment for everyone.
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For the right person, that’s the point.
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What We’re Looking For
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• 5+ years of software engineering experience
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• Significant experience building or operating payment systems
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• Deep expertise in at least one area of the payments ecosystem
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• Strong systems engineering fundamentals
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• Experience building reliable production infrastructure
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• Working knowledge of PCI DSS and payments compliance
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• Ability to communicate with customers and technical partners
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• A strong bias toward ownership and shipping
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You do not need to match every bullet.
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If you’re an exceptional engineer who knows payments deeply, we’d rather talk.
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Why PayOS
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You’ll join early enough that the things you build can become foundational parts of the company.
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You’ll work directly with the founders and some of the most important companies in payments.
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You’ll have real ownership, meaningful equity, and the ability to build things that would normally require a much larger organization.
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And you’ll be working at the intersection of two industries undergoing enormous change:
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AI and payments.
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Compensation & Benefits
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$150K–$200K + meaningful equity
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100% employee-covered health, dental, and vision
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Remote
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How to Apply
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Please don’t send us a standard cover letter.
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Email hiring-ops at payos.ai with:
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1. Your LinkedIn, GitHub, or portfolio
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2. The most interesting payments system or product you’ve personally built
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3. What you specifically owned
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4. The hardest payments problem you’ve ever had to debug
   If you’re the person on your team everyone calls when something weird happens in payments, we want to meet you.