Platform Engineer, Heron Data
$200-300k
+ Equity
Automation for document-heavy workflows
Job no longer available
Automation for document-heavy workflows
21-100 employees
Job no longer available
$200-300k
+ Equity
21-100 employees
Company mission
To save human lifetimes of tedious, white-collar work.
Role
Who you are
- Our ideal candidate is a backend engineer with 3-6 years of experience who has worked at a startup or growth-stage company and knows what it feels like to build something that actually matters
- You're more drawn to the systems layer than the UI layer, and you get satisfaction from making other engineers more productive
- You have a strong CS foundation (degree or equivalent depth) and have a track record of writing clean, well-tested Python in production
- You've built backend systems at a startup or growth-stage company and understand the trade-offs between speed and quality at that stage
- You're comfortable with cloud infrastructure (we're on GCP), databases, CI/CD, and the unglamorous work that keeps a platform running
- You care about reliability and developer experience. You might have fixed a flaky test suite in a previous job or built a simple but killer internal tool that everyone uses
- You don't need to be told what to do - pilot not passenger. You see problems, propose solutions, and ship them
- You're less interested in being the person on customer calls and more interested in being the person who makes sure the platform can handle whatever customers throw at it
What the job involves
- Our platform processes millions of sensitive financial documents for customers. As we onboard more lenders and expand into new verticals, the systems underneath need to get better, not just bigger
- Reliability at scale: Our customers handle large volumes of documents and data, and we operate at the core of their business. When they process an application through Heron, it needs to work every time
- Ou'll build the infrastructure that ensures our backend stays fast and reliable as volume grows
- Developer experience: We have a ~15-person engineering team shipping features across multiple product lines
- You'll build the internal tools, abstractions, and platform primitives that let product engineers move fast without breaking things
- Product thinking (yes, even for internal tools): You're building for an internal audience (namely our pre-sales and post-sales teams, and other engineers), but you treat it like a product
- That means understanding what we are trying to achieve for customers, designing intuitive tooling that makes that easy to do, and then iterating based on ‘customer’ feedback
- Security and compliance: This is critical to our customers — sensitive financial and deal data must be handled to exacting standards. This isn't an afterthought; it's a core platform requirement
- This is the kind of work that compounds. The better the platform, the faster every team at Heron can ship, and the faster we can deliver value to our customers
- This is a hands-on IC role on our Platform tribe, working directly with our CTO and Head of Engineering, and alongside a strong team of engineers
- Get into the codebase and start working on the Platform backlog within your first week. We don't believe in dragging out ramp-ups; you'll be reviewing and shipping code quickly
- Own the development of meaningful features on either our Product Platform (the building blocks like workflow orchestration & execution, entity management, and workflow tooling) or Platform Infra (scalability, resilience, CI/CD, security)
- Debug real customer issues end-to-end, from support ticket to production fix, gaining deep understanding of how the system works under load
- Contribute to the architectural decisions that shape how Heron's backend evolves as the volume we handle grows
- Longer-term, there's room to grow into a tech lead role as the platform team scales. But first and foremost, we need builders
- Small team, big impact: 15 engineers with minimal layers. Your work ships to production and directly affects how the platform performs
- Strong platform team: You'll work alongside other strong engineers who are similarly motivated and talented, and have built and scaled systems in the past
- Hands-on founders who build: Our CEO and CTO are deeply engaged in the product - you’ll work alongside them, not present to them
- Occasional travel for retreats and to work with the team
Application process
- Initial conversation (20 minutes) - conversation to discuss what you're looking for, what Heron offers, and to see if there's a good fit
- Technical interview (up to 60 minutes) - interactive technical session with one or two of our engineers where you will review a pull request and then do some live coding to build on it
- Team interviews (2-3 hours in total) - mix of technical and behavioral conversations with Heron teammates and founders. You'll get a feel for the people you'll work with and how we approach problems, and we'll get to know how you collaborate, communicate, and think
- References - 2 references from people you've worked with who can speak to your impact, working style, and contributions in a professional setting
Our take
NY-based Heron Data uses advanced AI and LLMs to automate document-heavy workflows. It stands out in the automation market for this laser-focus on handling documents - which traditionally cause problems for businesses looking to reduce manual work.
The company's flagship product is capable of streamlining underwriting for small business lenders and specialty finance companies. It integrates into existing CRMs directly, enabling customers to easily deliver their services faster, more accurately, and fairly.
With over 150 clients across industries like fintech, insurance, and law, the future is an exciting one for Heron. It already handles over 350,000 documents a week, for FDIC-backed lenders to leading insurers, which puts it in an ideal position for expansion.
Kirsty
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
Company
Funding (last 2 of 3 rounds)
Jul 2025
$16m
SERIES A
Sep 2020
$1.2m
SEED
Total funding: $17.4m
Company benefits
- Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage — including dependents
- Regular pay benchmarking to keep compensation aligned with impact
- Top-quality tech and a full desk setup
- 401k with an employer match
- Support for family planning and fertility care through Carrot
- Flexible PTO (“take what you need” policy)
Company HQ
Kips Bay, New York, NY
Leadership
Johannes Jaeckle
(CEO & Co-Founder)Operations Manager and Managing Director of Segovia Technology UK from 2015 to 2019. CEO and Managing Director of Taptap Send from 2018 to 2019.
Dominic Kwok
(CTO & Co-Founder)Experience as Data Scientist for Spotify and Facebook. Manager of Data Science for Revolut from 2019 to 2020.
Jamie Parker
(CRO & Co-Founder)Experience as Founder of The Student White Tie Company from 2014 to 2016. Associate and Manager of AlphaSights from 2015 to 2020.
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