Senior Staff Software Engineer (Individual Contributor) - AI/FinTech Startup
Full-time Hybrid
$220k-$300k + equity
A well-funded and rapidly scaling startup in the innovative AI-driven fintech space is seeking an experienced Senior Staff Engineer to take leadership in reshaping the foundations of their core platform. Following two years of rapid iteration and customer growth, the product has evolved into a collection of independently built services. The team is now looking for a seasoned individual contributor who can provide coherence, scalability, and long-term architectural stability as the engineering team expands.
This high-impact role involves direct collaboration with the CTO. You will set the technical direction, oversee major system redesigns, and prepare the platform to accommodate significantly larger usage and customer demands, alongside a future engineering organization of 20-40+ engineers.
What You'll Be Doing
• Lead architectural transformation
• Redesign major components into a unified, maintainable, and scalable system.
• Eliminate legacy code, minimize fragmentation, and introduce sound architectural patterns.
• Establish technical standards and guide the broader engineering team towards consistent, high-quality design.
• Drive high-leverage engineering work
• Collaborate closely with the CTO on long-term technical strategy.
• Lead the development of workflow systems for real-time identity, income, and document verification.
• Enhance the infrastructure behind the company's automated decisioning engine (currently >70% auto-approval/denial rate).
• Support integrations with internal machine learning models that manage fraud detection and financial document understanding.
• Influence and elevate the engineering culture
• Work collaboratively with senior and junior engineers across backend, full-stack, and infrastructure.
• Optimize developer velocity and support the onboarding process for larger enterprise customers.
• Assist in evolving the company from an early-stage engineering organization to a high-performance, mature team.
What They're Looking For
• 7-8+ years' experience as a proficient backend or full-stack individual contributor.
• Demonstrated capability to re-architect complex systems and scale codebases beyond the initial startup phase.
• Experience in a fast-growing startup (Seed A B or similar) with meaningful engineering organization growth.
• Expertise in modern backend or full-stack development (ideal: TypeScript, React, Node.js, Python).
• A drive to thrive in ambiguity, make pragmatic technical decisions, and act swiftly.
• A high engineering standard and the ability to elevate the capabilities 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 company with strong revenue, real customers, and top-tier investors.
• Take ownership of mission-critical architecture, beyond mere feature work.
• Collaborate with a highly capable CTO and shape the company's technical trajectory for years to come.
• Build systems that influence real-world decisions for millions of users.
• Competitive salary, meaningful equity, and the opportunity to leave a lasting technical impact.
