Software Engineer II, Backend - Orchestration

About the company

Primer is the unified infrastructure for global payments that gives finance and payments teams a single platform to manage the payments lifecycle and capture complete contextual payment data.

About this role

An Introduction to Primer Primer is the unified infrastructure for global payments. We give finance and payments teams the visibility and control to reduce complexity, improve performance, and capture more revenue - all from a single platform. Backed by Sofina, Peak XV Partners, ICONIQ, Tencent, Accel, and Balderton, we're building the payments layer the world's best companies rely on. Watch our showcase > https://primer.io/the-primer-showcase Read up on our $100m Series C https://www.primer.io/blog/series-c Learn more about our culture > https://primer.io/careers A Primer payment is worth so much more than a regular payment. In the Orchestration team we build the engine that powers intelligent, seamless, and reliable payments, across any provider, method, or market. We own the full orchestration layer: routing decisions, fallback logic, and the smart infrastructure that makes every payment perform at its best. This team covers everything from checkout and payment processing through to tokenization, authentication, fallback logic, developer tooling, and workflows. As a Backend Engineer you will work within a small, high-calibre team of engineers who own their work end to end. You'll report into the Engineering Manager for Orchestration and contribute to systems that handle real payment volume at scale. WHAT WILL YOU BE DOING? - Deliver backend features end to end, from a defined spec through to production, keeping the team updated on progress and flagging blockers early - Build and ship backend services that handle real payment volume, with support from senior engineers on the harder design and reliability calls - Take part in architecture and design discussions, ask good questions, and learn how the team makes technical decisions - Keep an eye on how your work behaves in production, spot issues early, and help drive them to resolution with the team - Write code your peers consider high quality: production-ready, thoughtful on error paths, and built with the next engineer in mind - Work to Primer's engineering standards and build a real understanding of why they exist - Collaborate with the Orchestration team on scoping sessions, code reviews, and the technical decisions that shape how the system evolves WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR - Backend engineering experience and a track record of shipping working software. You can take a well-defined piece of work and deliver it through to production - A working understanding of how backend systems behave, and genuine curiosity about why things fail in production - Comfort with REST APIs and the patterns that make services reliable and easy to reason about - Real interest in what happens after you hit deploy: monitoring, rollout, and the health of what you've built - Willingness to ask questions, take feedback well, and learn quickly from more experienced engineers around you - Experience in a payments, fintech, or infrastructure context is a plus, though depth of engineering matters more than the specific industry YOU MAY NOT LIKE IT HERE - Primer is remote-first. There is no office to fall back on for context or direction. You'll have people to lean on, but you need to be comfortable operating without constant signals - We do not over-engineer our processes. When something is unclear, you're expected to dig in and resolve it, not wait for someone else to - The Orchestration codebase is not simple. You'll inherit real technical complexity and be expected to engage with it thoughtfully - Ownership here is real, and you'll be expected to grow into it quickly. When something in your area needs attention, it becomes your problem to understand and help fix ✅ A TYPICAL INTERVIEW PROCESS - An initial intro call with a Talent Partner - An interview with the Hiring Manager - Challenge Stage - Contextualised to the role - A final, values-alignment interview WHAT'S THE CULTURE LIKE AT PRIMER? We're building a culture where people can do their best work and be proud of the impact they have. You'll be working with people who are mission-driven, smart, and reflective, and who are genuinely invested in building exceptional products and delivering success for our merchants. We work remotely, and have done since day one. We believe that building a successful, profitable company goes beyond proximity. We invest in our relationships through great remote working practices and thoughtfully designed face-to-face time, including workations, our annual company retreat, and access to co-working spaces across most major cities. The work is challenging. Scaleups are a challenge, and building category-defining products is a challenge. But there's a meaningful difference between a challenge and a struggle. At Primer, the right challenge comes with the right support: strong onboarding, a collaborative environment, and a team that is genuinely invested in your success. It's never something you face alone. OUR BENEFITS 🌍 We are fully remote and globally distributed; and have been since day one 💰 Competitive share options 🌴 Uncapped holiday, with 25 days minimum to be taken 🗣️ Co-working space access across major cities 📅 Workations & Company Retreat 💻 The best equipment for your role 🏠 £500 towards your home office setup 🔎 Generous learning budget 🏥 Private Medical Insurance 📈 A broad set of additional perks and benefits (depending on location) DON’T MEET EVERY SINGLE REQUIREMENT? At Primer, we're dedicated to building a diverse, inclusive, and authentic workplace. If you're excited about this role but your experience doesn't align perfectly with every qualification listed, we encourage you to apply. You may be the right candidate for this or other roles. Primer is committed to the equal treatment of all current and prospective employees and adopts a zero-tolerance approach to discrimination, regardless of age, disability, sex, sexual orientation, pregnancy and maternity, race or e