Senior Engineering Manager, Betterment
API & Auth Platform
$200-230k
+ This job may also be eligible for variable compensation in the form of a company incentive bonus + equity
3 days a week in office
Automated investing & financial planning
Be an early applicant
Automated investing & financial planning
501-1000 employees
Be an early applicant
$200-230k
+ This job may also be eligible for variable compensation in the form of a company incentive bonus + equity
3 days a week in office
501-1000 employees
Company mission
To empower people to build wealth with confidence and ease.
Role
Who you are
- Experience managing senior and staff ICs; ability to coach engineers through technically complex challenges while maintaining team momentum. Capable of meaningful architectural direction, code review, and hands-on work in our codebase
- Proven track record leading a team that owns a shared platform used by engineering, operations, and customer support teams. Experience leading projects that affect multiple teams' software systems, tooling, and development workflows
- Experience managing shared API platforms — ideally GraphQL. An appreciation for the frameworks, conventions, and developer tooling that let product teams introduce new capabilities, support existing usage, and gracefully retire legacy functionality
- Hands-on experience with modern authentication/authorization patterns (OAuth 2.0, OIDC, passkeys), with an understanding of the importance of adoption, long-term support, and security testing
- Experience partnering with IT, security, and business leaders on governance, access, and permission models. Ability to build trust across disciplines and adapt as AI tools introduce new identity and access patterns
- Principled approach to balancing the need to move quickly today with the need to move quickly tomorrow, with an appreciation of how to meet high standards for customer quality and regulatory requirements
What the job involves
- The API & Auth Platform team enables product teams across Betterment to build and operate APIs quickly, enjoyably, and securely. As Sr Engineering Manager, you will lead a team of senior/staff engineers stewarding our shared GraphQL API frameworks, authentication and access control systems, and internal tooling platform
- You will work directly with engineering and product leadership to drive the technical direction of the GraphQL API frameworks powering our customer-facing web and mobile applications. You will also collaborate closely with operations, customer support, and compliance partners to ensure our internal APIs let teams operate Betterment systems with the rigor our customers and regulators expect
- As AI tooling reshapes how we build and operate our systems, you will have significant influence over how Betterment's APIs support AI agents and tooling safely in a regulated financial services environment
- Lead and grow a team of senior/staff engineers building the API, authentication, and internal tooling platform that every Betterment team relies on
- Drive technical strategy for the GraphQL API frameworks powering our customer-facing and internal apps, including agentic tooling for AI-native API development workflows
- Ensure Betterment's authentication and authorization systems remain current with industry best practices
- Sequence your team roadmap to balance reliability, security, developer experience, and platform capabilities — e.g. secure, first-party MCP access to Betterment APIs
- Work alongside the product teams who build on your platform every day. Develop broad Betterment domain expertise in the process
- Hold the line on the standards that keep shared systems healthy. Make them visible and easy to meet, and ensure teams understand the "why" behind them
- Partner with IT and security on platform governance so engineering teams can build on the API platform and ops teams can operate through it with confidence — as new AI identity and access patterns take shape
- Partner with department leaders on a permission model that fits evolving team workflows and incorporates new AI tooling, including MCP servers and connectors
- Cultivate efficient, blameless incident response across your team and the teams building on the API platform. Invest in observability that serves both developers and internal tool users
- Translate Betterment's strong culture of accountability into platform operating procedures — clear ownership, security, and iteration
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
- We recognize that interviewing for a new role is a big deal. We appreciate you considering Betterment as the next step in your career, and our Recruiting Team is here to support and advocate for you through 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.
Freddie
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
-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
- Compensation & Ownership: Competitive, benchmarked salary. Equity for everyone, including new hire, performance, and refresher grants.
- Retirement: 401(k) match from day one, including Student loan matching. Zero management fees.
- Health & Wellbeing: Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage. One Medical membership. Fertility and LGBTQIA+ transition support.
- Time Away: Flexible time off. Paid parental leave for all parents. Four-week sabbatical in year six.
- In-Office Culture & Flexibility: An in-person, collaborative culture, with no required office days during the summer and winter holidays.
- Growth & Development: Free Coaching for everyone and continuous development.
- Community & Care: Chef lunches, guest speakers, company gatherings, heritage celebrations, and seven Employee Resource Groups.
- Employee Support: Dedicated benefits advocate and EAP access.
Company HQ
Chelsea, New York, NY
Leadership
Sarah Kirshbaum Levy
(CEO)Prior to joining Betterment in 2020, Sarah served as the COO for Viacom Media Networks.
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