Staff Backend Software Engineer, Betterment

$210-235k

+ Equity

SQL
Python
C#
Scala
Java
Go
C++
Senior and Expert level
New York

In office Tuesday - Thursday

3 days a week in office

Betterment

Banking and investment app

Open for applications

Betterment

Banking and investment app

501-1000 employees

FintechB2CCryptocurrencyBankingFinancial ServicesMobile

Open for applications

$210-235k

+ Equity

SQL
Python
C#
Scala
Java
Go
C++
Senior and Expert level
New York

In office Tuesday - Thursday

3 days a week in office

501-1000 employees

FintechB2CCryptocurrencyBankingFinancial ServicesMobile

Company mission

To make people’s lives better.

Role

Who you are

  • 8+ years of professional expertise in at least one object oriented language, such as Java, C#, C++, Go, Scala, or Python. We build our apps in Java
  • 8+ years professional experience with SQL and relational databases
  • A strong command of domain driven design and building large scale, fault tolerant distributed systems
  • Proven ability to lead and manage projects that may engage one or more teams, considering tradeoffs to balance predictable delivery while maintaining high standards of quality, performance and security
  • A track record of developing and maintaining a long-term technical roadmap, creating project plans and leading others through their implementation
  • Mentorship of other smart, passionate developers, fostering best practices and positively impacting growth in their role
  • Partnership with business stakeholders, product owners, and other technical leads on project plans and product roadmaps
  • An understanding of how to make the tradeoffs required to ship without compromising quality
  • Appreciation for agility and pragmatism in software development

What the job involves

  • We’re looking for engineers to help us answer some of our most difficult backend scaling, software design, and optimization questions
  • As a Staff Engineer on our backend teams, you'll help balance on-time delivery of new platform features alongside system stability and scale, all while helping mentor and grow a team of amazing engineers
  • Drive the technical vision and long-term strategy of the team
  • Build innovative trading and money-movement technology that empowers people to make the most of their money, so they can live better
  • Solve “impossible” problems. Take your ideas to the next level right away. We experiment, iterate, learn, and repeat
  • Uphold a standard of excellence in your work, continuously seeking improvement and welcoming guidance from more experienced engineers
  • Collaborate with purpose. You’ll work in small groups with other talented thinkers and figure out how to make Betterment’s software even better
  • Gain trust through transparency. We believe in taking the guesswork out of investing. That means a consistent experience for our customers — you’ll build the tools to make it possible
  • Create efficiency. Our software helps customers save time and money. We maintain it through clean code, pragmatic programming, and lean engineering
  • Contribute to an environment of open communication where engineers feel empowered to share ideas and take initiative to solve problems that achieve company objectives
  • Support the growth of other engineers by providing specific feedback and building ownership redundancy in your domain

Application process

  • We’ll take a few weeks to review all applications
  • If we’d like to spend more time with you, we’ll reach out to arrange next steps, which will include 3-4 sets of meetings with your future colleagues
  • In the interview process, we’ll look to learn more about your skills, experiences, capabilities, and motivators
  • Many of our questions will be aimed at understanding how you might operate here at Betterment
  • Depending on the role, we may ask you to complete a case study exercise or technical assessments, as we want to collect a robust set of data points to better inform our decisions
  • On average, it takes us around 3-5 weeks to make a hiring decision, depending on your availability and sense of urgency
  • As a best practice, we aim to interview at least 2-3 final round candidates before making a hiring decision
  • Please note that, as we usually receive an overwhelming number of applications for open positions, we’re unable to offer individual feedback during the interview process

Our take

Betterment is an app-based investment platform that provides personal finance data and guidance to retail users through a range of real-world data and AI analytics to deliver investment advice to customers.

The company has become the largest independent digital investment advisor in the U.S. Having expanded its 401k business, Betterment has entered the world of Crypto, partnering with Gemini to offer customized crypto portfolios and its "Crypto Investing by Betterment" platform.

Betterment has a wealth of competition in this increasingly crowded space. Other robo advisors offering similar services include Moneyfarm, Wealth Simple, M1 Finance and Personal Capital. Going forward, Betterment hopes to further distance itself from rivals as it further innovates its platform.

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Freddie

Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle

Insights

Top investors

Some candidates hear
back within 2 weeks

-6% employee growth in 12 months

Company

Funding (last 2 of 7 rounds)

Sep 2021

$60m

SERIES F

Jul 2017

$70m

SERIES E

Total funding: $335m

Company benefits

  • Health and wellness: Get comprehensive medical, dental, and vision, plus a free subscription to One Medical.©
  • Generous time off: We encourage you to take time off (seriously) and get the rest you need to do your best work.
  • Paid parental leave: We welcome new additions to your family with 12-18 weeks of parental leave.
  • Matching benefits: We offer a 401(k) match and a match on qualified student loan payments
  • Equity: Gain stake in Betterment’s success with company equity grants.
  • Free food: Snacks, beverages, and catered lunches at our NYC HQ
  • Long-term health resources: We provide LGBTQIA+ transition and fertility support.
  • Find your community: Make connections through seven employee affinity groups and a social calendar of hybrid events.

Company values

  • Pursue happiness
  • Start with the customer
  • Build relationships beyond the task
  • Own it and lead it
  • Iterate to breakthrough
  • Embrace efficiency
  • Create enduring quality

Company HQ

Flatiron District, New York, NY

Leadership

Jonathan Stein

(Board Member)

After studying Economics at Harvard, Jonathan worked as a Consultant at First Manhattan Consulting Group for over 4 years. He founded Betterment in 2007, serving as CEO until 2020 when he stepped down to Chairman of the Board.

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