Engineering Lead

Storm2; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 200,000 - 250,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity

Job summary

Storm2 is seeking a Staff Software Engineer / Technical Lead in San Francisco to own backend architecture for an AI-native wealthtech platform. This role emphasizes leadership, ownership of AI-driven systems, and shaping engineering culture in a lean, early-stage environment.

You'll work with founders and product teams, focusing on Node.js/TypeScript stacks, robust APIs, data pipelines, and scalable infrastructure. Significant equity accompanies a challenging, high-impact role.

Qualifications

• Production-grade backend design experience.
• Strong system design, distributed systems, data pipelines knowledge.
• Experience with APIs, cloud infra, and data flows.
• Ability to work in Node.js/TypeScript stack.
• Comfort working with high-volume, sensitive data.
• Strong product sense and balance of speed and scalability.
• Excellent communication with technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Comfort in early-stage, ownership-driven environments.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and scale backend systems for complex financial data workflows.
• Own key technical and architectural decisions across the platform.
• Build in Node.js/TypeScript while contributing across the stack.
• Develop reliable APIs, services, and data pipelines with observability.
• Help evolve AI and agent-based product capabilities.
• Partner with product leadership to ship rapidly and iterate.
• Establish engineering best practices while maintaining speed.
• Take ownership of technical direction as the team grows.

Skills

Backend design

Distributed systems

APIs

Data pipelines

Cloud infrastructure

Node.js/TypeScript

Observability

Stakeholder collaboration

Ambiguity tolerance

Tools

AWS

GCP

Azure

Job description

Staff Software Engineer / Technical Lead

AI-Native WealthTech Startup | San Francisco, CA

The Opportunity

We’re partnering with an early-stage WealthTech company building an AI-native portfolio management platform for investment advisors.

The company is being built by a highly experienced founding team with multiple previous exits and is now looking for a Staff Software Engineer / Technical Lead to join its lean engineering organization.

This is a backend-focused individual contributor role with significant ownership across architecture, product, and the company’s AI and agent-driven systems. You’ll work closely with the founders and product team, helping shape both the technical foundation and engineering culture as the business scales.

For someone interested in leadership, there is also an opportunity to grow into an Engineering Lead / Manager position as the team expands.

What You’ll Do

• Design, build, and scale backend systems supporting complex financial data workflows and external integrations
• Own key technical and architectural decisions across the platform
• Build primarily within a Node.js / TypeScript environment while contributing across the stack when needed
• Develop reliable APIs, services, and data pipelines with strong observability, scalability, and performance
• Help build and evolve the company’s AI and agent-based product capabilities
• Partner directly with product and company leadership to rapidly ship, gather user feedback, and iterate
• Establish engineering best practices while maintaining the speed and pragmatism required in an early-stage environment
• Take meaningful ownership over the technical direction of the product as the engineering team grows

What You Bring

• Strong experience designing and building production-grade backend systems
• Deep understanding of system design, distributed systems, APIs, data pipelines, and cloud infrastructure
• Experience working with modern cloud environments such as AWS, GCP, or Azure
• Full-stack capability combined with a clear backend-first mindset
• Experience working with high-volume, complex, or reliability-sensitive data
• Strong product instincts and the ability to balance speed, technical debt, and long-term scalability
• Comfort operating in ambiguous, early-stage environments where engineers have significant ownership
• Strong communication skills and the ability to collaborate effectively with both technical and non-technical stakeholders
• Interest in helping shape engineering architecture, processes, and culture rather than simply owning a predefined feature set

Nice to Have

• Experience within FinTech, particularly WealthTech, investing, asset management, payments, lending, or another financial-services-focused environment
• Experience building products in regulated or data-sensitive industries
• Hands-on exposure to AI/ML, LLMs, agentic systems, or AI-enabled applications
• Previous experience at a high-growth Seed through Series B startup
• Experience as an early or founding engineer
• Approximately 5+ years of software engineering experience, or equivalent experience demonstrating Staff-level technical ownership

Why Join?

• Founding-level impact: Join a small engineering team where your technical decisions will directly influence the product and company
• Experienced leadership: Work alongside founders and operators who have previously built and exited multiple companies
• Technical ownership: Own substantial parts of the architecture rather than a narrow set of features
• AI + WealthTech: Build AI-native tooling for a large, established financial-services market
• Leadership opportunity: Potential to grow from a senior individual contributor into an Engineering Lead / Manager as the organization scales
• Meaningful equity: Significant equity ownership alongside a competitive $200K–$250K base salary