Job Description

Staff Software Engineer (IC) – High-Growth AI/FinTech Startup

Full-time · Hybrid (San Francisco)

$220k–$300k + equity

A well-funded, rapidly scaling startup in the AI-driven fintech space is looking for an experienced Staff Engineer to take ownership of reshaping the foundations of their core platform. After two years of fast iteration and customer growth, the product has evolved into a set of independently built services. They now need a senior IC who can bring coherence, scalability, and long-term architectural stability as the engineering team expands.

This is a high-impact individual contributor role working directly with the CTO. You’ll set technical direction, oversee major system redesigns, and help prepare the platform to support significantly larger usage, customer demands, and a future 20–40+ engineer organisation.

What You’ll Be Doing

Lead architectural transformation

• Redesign major components into a unified, maintainable, scalable system.
• Remove legacy code, reduce fragmentation, and introduce sound architectural patterns.
• Define technical standards and guide the broader engineering team towards consistent, high-quality design.

Drive high-leverage engineering work

• Partner closely with the CTO on long-term technical strategy.
• Lead development of workflow systems for real-time identity, income, and document verification.
• Strengthen the infrastructure that powers the company’s automated decisioning engine (currently >70% auto-approval/denial rate).
• Support integrations with internal ML models that perform fraud detection and financial document understanding.

Influence and elevate the engineering culture

• Collaborate with senior and junior engineers across backend, full-stack and infra.
• Improve developer velocity and support onboarding of larger enterprise customers.
• Help the company scale from an early-stage engineering organisation to a mature, high-performance team.

What They’re Looking For

• 7–8+ years’ experience as a strong backend or full-stack IC.
• Proven ability to re-architect complex systems and scale codebases beyond the “early startup” phase.
• Experience in a fast-growing startup (Seed → A → B or similar) where the engineering org expanded meaningfully.
• Depth in modern backend or full-stack development (ideal: TypeScript, React, Node.js, Python ).
• Someone who thrives in ambiguity , makes pragmatic technical decisions, and moves quickly.
• A high engineering bar and the ability to raise the standards of those around you.

Tech Environment

• Frontend: TypeScript, React
• Backend: Node.js, Python
• Data: Postgres, BigQuery, Redis
• Cloud: GCP
• Hybrid working model; candidates must be based in or willing to relocate to the San Francisco Bay Area. (Hybrid flexibility available for senior candidates.)

Why This Role Is Exciting

• Join a business with strong revenue, real customers , and top-tier backers.
• Have ownership of mission-critical architecture , not just feature work.
• Work alongside a highly capable CTO and shape the company’s technical trajectory for years to come.
• Build systems that support real-world decisions for millions of end-users.
• Competitive salary, meaningful equity, and the chance to make a long-term technical mark.

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