Engineering Manager - Data Platform
About the job
- At least 5 years of software engineering experience, including at least 2 years in a technical leadership or engineering management role, ideally in data infrastructure, machine learning platform, or a similar backend or data domain.
- Ability to stay close to team execution and review and discuss technical designs and trade-offs.
- Strong understanding of modern data and lakehouse stacks, including Spark, PySpark, Databricks, Airflow, and AWS cloud infrastructure.
- Experience with machine learning infrastructure concepts, including feature stores, model training and serving pipelines, model registries, and batch and real-time inference.
- Track record of managing engineers with empathy, giving direct feedback, and building a healthy, high-ownership team culture.
- Experience building strong teams by hiring to a high technical bar and actively growing engineers' careers.
- Experience navigating ambiguity and competing priorities across multiple technical domains and stakeholders, with strong judgment around reliability and operational rigor.
- Excellent written and verbal communication, with the ability to represent technical trade-offs to engineers and non-technical stakeholders.
- Manage and grow a team of 5-6 engineers across data storage and schema, the feature store and machine learning platform, and the underwriting platform, including hiring, mentorship, and career development.
- Set and drive execution and technical strategy for warehouse and data infrastructure, including Databricks, Airflow, and dbt; the feature store and machine learning development lifecycle; and underwriting pipelines.
- Review designs and code, unblock the team on difficult technical problems, and personally drive architecture for the highest-priority initiatives.
- Own reliability and on-call for the team's systems, and build sustainable processes for incident response, service-level agreements, and recoverability.
- Partner closely with underwriting data science and product engineering teams that build on top of the data platform.
- Represent the team's roadmap and trade-offs to cross-functional stakeholders in data science, Merchant Decisioning, Product, and Risk, and prioritize across data infrastructure, machine learning platform, and underwriting pipeline needs.
- Experience with the Databricks technology ecosystem.
- Experience at startups.
- Experience in the fintech domain.
About the company
Parafin provides embedded financing for online platforms and their merchant partners, offering a white-label financing infrastructure. It handles underwriting, funding, servicing, compliance, and support so platforms can offer capital to merchants under their own brand. The financing uses a merchant’s sales history with no interest, late fees, or credit checks; repayments are automated and vary with sales, with funds available in as little as one business day, and loans issued by Celtic Bank. Parafin differentiates itself with a full-service, white-label approach and partnerships with major platforms like Amazon, MindBody, and DoorDash, aiming to help platforms grow revenue and strengthen merchant loyalty.
Company Size
51-200
Company Stage
Debt Financing
Total Funding
$765M
Headquarters
San Francisco, California
Founded
2020
Get referred to Parafin
See people who can refer or advise you
Simplify's Take
What believers are saying
- Stripe's September 30, 2026 acquisition validates Parafin's embedded lending model.
- Tekion launched Pay Over Time on September 10, 2026, expanding B2B distribution.
- Goldman Sachs backed June 17, 2026 capacity, supporting more than 60,000 businesses.
What critics are saying
- Stripe's acquisition, announced September 30, 2026, can fail regulatory clearance.
- Platform concentration remains brutal; one partner decision can erase originations overnight.
- Credit losses and warehouse dependence can compress margins and trap Parafin inside Stripe.
What makes Parafin unique
- Parafin embeds underwriting, funding, servicing, compliance, and support inside partner platforms.
- Its cash-flow underwriting replaces personal credit checks for merchants and dealerships.
- Stripe says Parafin already serves DoorDash, Gusto, Jobber, and Mindbody.
Help us improve and share your feedback! Did you find this helpful?
Benefits
Competitive salary & equity
Health, dental, & vision
401k plan
Parental leave
Unlimited PTO
Commuter benefits
Daily lunches
Growth & Insights and Company News
6 month growth
↓ -1%1 year growth
↓ -3%2 year growth
↓ -4%Stripe is acquiring Parafin, a fintech startup that has provided $3 billion in financing to 60,000 small businesses. Parafin offers embedded financing solutions through major platforms including DoorDash and Amazon. The acquisition strengthens Stripe's position in the small business lending market. Parafin's technology enables platforms to offer capital directly to merchants and service providers within their ecosystems, streamlining access to funding. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. The move represents Stripe's continued expansion beyond its core payments business into adjacent financial services for businesses.
Parafin expands embedded finance with Tekion partnership. September 11, 2026 Parafin, an embedded finance company, has partnered with Tekion to bring flexible B2B financing directly into the automotive technology provider's dealer platform. The partnership will see Parafin's Pay Over Time product embedded into Tekion Pay, allowing dealerships to split business invoices into biweekly instalments rather than paying upfront. The move highlights how embedded finance is expanding beyond traditional consumer payments, with vertical software platforms increasingly integrating lending and payment products directly into their workflows. Dealership customers can choose between Pay-in-4, Pay-in-8 and Pay-in-12 options, with approval decisions delivered within seconds. Rather than relying on an owner's personal credit history, Parafin assesses eligibility using business cash flow and transaction data. Customers can therefore access financing without a credit bureau check or personal guarantee. The product is designed to help businesses preserve working capital while managing supplier and operational costs, with the financing offered alongside existing ACH and card payment options within Tekion Pay. Parafin provides financial infrastructure that enables software platforms to offer products including financing and payments to their business customers. The company handles areas including underwriting, servicing, compliance and support, and has deployed its technology across platforms including Amazon, Gusto and DoorDash. The partnership with Tekion adds another vertical to Parafin's embedded finance strategy, placing financing directly within software already used by automotive retailers rather than requiring businesses to seek funding through a separate financial provider. Parafin CEO Sahill Poddar said, "The way businesses pay each other hasn't kept pace with the rest of commerce. Consumers have come to expect flexible payment options at checkout, but businesses are still navigating invoices, net terms, and manual financing. Together with Tekion, we're bringing that same modern experience to B2B." Tekion Senior Director and GM of Fintech Jamie Fox added, "Our mission is to connect every part of the automotive retail ecosystem - from dealer workflows to vendor payments. By embedding Parafin Pay Over Time directly into Tekion Pay, we're making it possible for dealers to accelerate cash flow while giving their vendors the flexibility they already expect. It's a win for everyone." Enjoying the stories? Investors. The following investor(s) were tagged in this article.
Parafin and Tekion have launched Pay Over Time, a B2B buy now, pay later solution for dealership business customers. The service is embedded in Tekion's Automotive Retail Cloud platform via Tekion Pay. Pay Over Time allows businesses to split invoices into biweekly installments with instant approval at checkout. Business buyers can choose Pay-in-4, Pay-in-8, or Pay-in-12 payment plans. The service uses cash flow data from linked business bank accounts for underwriting, rather than personal credit scores. This approach enables approval of businesses that traditional financing might overlook. No credit bureau pull or personal guarantee is required. The solution addresses a gap in B2B payments, where businesses typically must either pay upfront or negotiate slow-to-establish net terms with suppliers.
Parafin powers SpotOn Capital, bringing improved underwriting and lower financing costs. Team Parafin Parafin, a financial infrastructure company for embedded lending, today announced that its underwriting and capital platform now powers SpotOn Capital, the financing program built into SpotOn's restaurant and financial technology platform. The partnership gives eligible restaurant operators better access to financing, lower costs, and faster funding. Operators who refinanced with SpotOn Capital in partnership with Parafin offers paid 35% less on average for their financing than under their previous programs.* One operator reduced its monthly payments by nearly 50% after switching to SpotOn Capital. "The needs of platforms and their customers change over time, and their financial products should be able to change with them," said Sahill Poddar, Co-founder and CEO of Parafin. "SpotOn saw an opportunity to improve its capital program for restaurant operators, and we're proud to help them deliver lower costs, broader access, and a program that can continue to evolve." SpotOn completed the migration to Parafin in two months, with no change to how merchants apply for or manage financing. Beyond handling underwriting and capital disbursement, Parafin also manages servicing, compliance, and program operations. Parafin's AI-powered underwriting model evaluates restaurant revenue and overall business performance, rather than relying primarily on personal credit scores, making financing accessible to operators that traditional lenders overlook. This gives companies like SpotOn the infrastructure to launch, operate, and evolve lending programs without building those capabilities in-house. "For restaurant operators, financing has always come with too many trade-offs: slow approvals, rigid terms, and underwriting that doesn't account for how a restaurant actually runs," said Doron Friedman, Chief Innovation Officer at SpotOn. "By partnering with Parafin, SpotOn Capital looks at real business performance, not just a credit score. That means more operators qualify, get better terms, and can get access to funding faster." SpotOn Capital is available now to eligible businesses through the SpotOn dashboard. To learn more, visit spoton.com/solutions/capital. *Based on SpotOn internal data. Reflects operators who refinanced from their prior capital program into SpotOn Capital during 2025-2026. The 35% average reflects total cost of financing under SpotOn Capital compared to each operator's prior financing program. Individual savings vary by business performance, financing product, and offer terms. About Parafin Parafin is a financial infrastructure company that provides platforms with embedded financial products for their small businesses by abstracting the complexity of capital markets, underwriting, servicing, compliance, and customer support. By powering the embedded financial services of merchant platforms, small businesses can run and grow themselves despite uncertain economic conditions. In just a few years, Parafin has launched on Amazon, Gusto, and more platforms to serve hundreds of thousands of businesses and extended over $35 billion in offers. About SpotOn SpotOn is a leading restaurant and financial technology company that helps operators run smarter, more profitable businesses. Known for its flexible, cloud-based restaurant management system and 24/7 support, SpotOn offers a complete point-of-sale with online ordering and reservations, labor management, AI-powered P&L analysis, and access to best-in-class integrations. SpotOn builds restaurant technology designed for peace of mind and delivers it with hospitality. For more information, visit www.spoton.com All loans are issued by Celtic Bank. All loans and offers are subject to credit approval, identity verification, and periodic review, and may change without notice. Bank transfers are subject to review.
Parafin has secured a $300 million forward-flow agreement with a New York-based alternative asset manager to expand its small business lending capacity. Under the deal, up to $300 million of loans originated through Parafin's platform will be sold into a rated financing vehicle. The agreement follows recent funding partnerships with Goldman Sachs, EverBank, and First Citizens. Parafin has now financed over 50,000 businesses through its embedded financial products, which include working capital, buy now, pay later, and business credit cards. The company embeds financing directly into software platforms and marketplaces, allowing small businesses to access capital through their existing workflows. Platform partners include Amazon, Walmart, DoorDash, and Gusto. Founded in 2020, Parafin is backed by Ribbit Capital, Thrive Capital, GIC, Notable Capital, and Redpoint Ventures.