Staff Engineer, Commerce Platform

About the Commerce Platform

The Commerce Platform team is Rover's trusted commerce backbone, owning everything from the order lifecycle to the checkout and payout experience—making it effortless, secure, and reliable for anyone to transact on Rover while ensuring financial accuracy, auditability, and regulatory compliance at scale. Our team's responsibilities include:

Delivering a convenient, secure checkout and payout experience. We own the integrations with our payment service providers (including Stripe and PayPal), manage KYC verification, ensure PCI compliance, and continually improve the platform by expanding payment offerings, optimizing checkout flows, and improving the bottom line through high-impact projects

Owning the end-to-end transaction lifecycle. We maintain orders and line-item data, fees, credits, and promotions, and serve as the source of truth for what gets charged, credited, taxed, and paid out on the platform—including tax calculation and reporting across eligible jurisdictions

Ensuring accurate, audit-ready financial records. We run the reconciliation and reporting pipelines that keep month-end close clean and accurate, partnering closely with Rover's Finance & Accounting and FP&A teams as Rover grows internationally and adds new service lines

*This is a hybrid position that has the minimum expectation to work out of our Downtown Seattle Office two days per week on Mondays and Thursdays. For this reason, candidates must be based in the Greater Seattle Area or willing to relocate.

 

Additionally, applicants must be currently authorized to work in the United States on a full-time basis, without the need for current or future employer sponsorship for an employment-based visa status.

What you’ll do

Build a deep, working understanding of how money moves through Rover: orders, fees, credits, discounts, taxes, and payouts. Use those insights to catch risks and spot opportunities early
Set the technical direction for Rover’s transaction lifecycle, from how a booking becomes a charge to how a sitter gets paid, that every other product team builds against
Take on problems that arrive unscoped and cross team lines: a tax requirement in a new market, a new payment provider, a change to how Rover's fees work. Turn them into a plan others can align around
Work directly with Finance, Accounting, and Compliance to translate accounting and regulatory requirements into good system design
Raise the bar for how Rover builds financially trustworthy systems, through design review, code review, and patterns that teams outside Commerce Platform adopt
Move fluidly between hands-on work and mentorship. Raise the technical bar for engineers beyond your own team, and know when to step back and let others lead
Care that every owner is charged or refunded correctly for their stays and that their sitter gets paid the right amount on the right day.

Qualifications

Deep technical background  with 8+ years of experience in software development best practices, system design, and architecture, with the technical range to work effectively across a modern web/mobile stack (e.g., Python, Django, Relational Databases, React, React Native)
Experience running cross-functional initiatives, influencing technical direction and roadmaps across teams, and building alignment across organizational boundaries
Proven ability to navigate complex, open-ended technical challenges across multi-system architectures, using strong engineering judgment to establish strategic direction
Experience leveraging AI and agentic coding tools to increase engineering velocity and raise the technical bar across engineering teams
Experience with large-scale, high-traffic consumer marketplace platforms; commerce, payments, or other finance-critical domain experience preferred
Excellent written and verbal communication, including with senior leadership, stakeholders, and external partners
Track record mentoring engineers and leading technical interviewing efforts, including helping shape what the team looks for in candidates
Aligned with Rover Core Values

Benefits of working at Rover

Competitive compensation
401k match
Long-term incentive plan with a company performance-based cash payout
Flexible PTO
Competitive benefits package, including medical, dental, and vision insurance
Commuter benefits
Bring your dog to work (and unlimited puppy time)
Pet benefits, including $1000 toward adopting your first dog or cat
Stocked fridges, coffee, soda, and lots of treats (for humans and dogs), and free catered lunches monthly 
Regular team activities performed in-person and virtually

Compensation

In the greater Seattle area, the first-year salary range is $182,290–$260,000. Additionally, Rover offers benefits to full-time employees.

Cash compensation for this role will depend on the candidate's experience, qualifications, skills, and abilities as demonstrated during the interview and hiring process.