dLocal is a leading cross-border payment processor specializing in emerging markets across Latin America, Asia, and Africa. The company provides a single API platform that enables global enterprise merchants to accept and send payments using local methods, serving major tech giants like Amazon, Microsoft, and Google. As a publicly traded company on NASDAQ, dLocal operates at a massive scale, facilitating complex financial transactions in high-growth regions. In Spain, dLocal maintains a strategic hub in Madrid that serves as a key center for its European and global operations. The company is highly relevant for international professionals due to its multicultural workforce and English-centric business environment. Their Madrid office offers a dynamic fintech atmosphere where employees work on global-scale infrastructure, making it an ideal destination for expats looking to build a career in international finance and technology.

Founded in 2016 in Montevideo, Uruguay, dLocal was created to solve the complexity of payments in emerging markets. It became Uruguay's first unicorn in 2020 and successfully launched its IPO on NASDAQ in 2021.

Staff Engineer

dLocal

Requirements

What skills do I need?

Bachelor’s degree in software engineering or computer science.
Minimum of 7 years of professional experience in Java development.
Solid experience in Java application development and software architecture.
In-depth knowledge of object-oriented design principles and design patterns.
Ability to write clean, efficient, and readable code.
Experience with cloud platforms such as AWS or GCP (desired).
Experience with Java development frameworks like Spring and Hibernate.
Event-driven architecture design experience.
High-level project management skills.
Ability to solve complex software system issues.
Good verbal and written communication skills.
Being a team player, enjoying working with your own team and collaborating with other teams in the organization.
Upper-intermediate written and spoken English proficiency.
Well-versed in the software development life cycle.
Experience with monitoring applications in production using telemetry tooling such as Newrelic, Datadog, Grafana + Prometheus, Dynatrace, CloudWatch, distributed logs like ELK, etc.

Original Advert

Why should you join dLocal?

dLocal enables the biggest companies in the world to collect payments in 40 countries in emerging markets. Global brands rely on us to increase conversion rates and simplify payment expansion effortlessly. As both a payments processor and a merchant of record where we operate, we make it possible for our merchants to make inroads into the world's fastest-growing, emerging markets.

By joining us you will be a part of an amazing global team that makes it all happen. Being a part of dLocal means working with 1000+ teammates from 30+ different nationalities and developing an international career that impacts millions of people's daily lives. We are builders, we never run from a challenge, we are customer-centric, and if this sounds like you, we know you will thrive in our team.

We are looking for a highly skilled Staff Engineer to join our Payments Performance team. This team is focused on optimizing payment performance across multiple dimensions: improving conversion rates, maximizing take rate, and keeping fraud and operational costs under control while ensuring compliance.

As a Staff Engineer, you will play a key role in designing and evolving the systems that power critical areas such as payment routing, fraud prevention, and anomaly detection. This includes building and scaling systems that intelligently decide which processors handle each transaction, developing real-time fraud decisioning tools based on data and machine learning models, and enabling proactive detection of anomalies across business and operational metrics.

You will work closely with cross-functional teams to design robust, scalable, and high-performance systems, ensuring they meet both current and future needs. Your expertise in system design and architecture will be essential in driving technical decisions, improving our platform, and helping the team navigate complex challenges.

This role requires a strong strategic mindset and the ability to understand the broader impact of technical decisions, as you'll be contributing directly to the evolution of one of the most critical areas of our platform.

What will I be doing?

Collaborate with technology leaders and the product team to understand department goals and requirements, translating them into technical solutions.
Design, develop, and maintain high-quality Java applications and systems aligned with business objectives.
Lead the technical architecture and design of Java-based projects, ensuring scalability, performance, and maintainability.
Create scalable architecture systems for Java-based applications, considering future growth and evolving business needs.
Optimize application performance by identifying and addressing areas for improvement, such as code optimization, database query optimization, and resource utilization.
Troubleshoot design flaws and system bottlenecks to enhance application stability and performance.
Perform validation tests to ensure the flexibility and scalability of the Java environment, making necessary adjustments as needed.
Conduct comprehensive system performance tests to identify bottlenecks, assess system capacity, and fine-tune application performance.
Generate and present detailed systems reports, including performance metrics, bottlenecks, and recommendations for improvements.
Conduct code reviews and provide constructive feedback to maintain high standards of software development, ensuring code quality, readability, and adherence to best practices.

What do we offer?

Besides the tailored benefits we have for each country, dLocal will help you thrive and go that extra mile by offering you:

- Flexibility: we have flexible schedules and we are driven by performance.

- Fintech industry: work in a dynamic and ever-evolving environment, with plenty to build and boost your creativity.

- Referral bonus program: our internal talents are the best recruiters - refer someone ideal for a role and get rewarded.

- Social budget: you'll get a monthly budget to chill out with your team (in person or remotely) and deepen your connections!

- dLocal Houses: want to rent a house to spend one week anywhere in the world coworking with your team? We've got your back!

Flexibility in how you work: We focus on impact and productivity over fixed hours. This means our teams have flexible schedules and, depending on your role and location, you will combine self‑managed focus time with moments of in‑person connection in our collaboration hubs.

What happens after you apply?

Our Talent Acquisition team is invested in creating the best candidate experience possible, so don't worry, you will definitely hear from us. We will review your CV and keep you posted by email at every step of the process!