Senior Software Engineer, AI Accounting

Exponent; New York (NY); Hybrid; USD 180,000 - 280,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

PTO

Healthcare

HSA/FSA

401(k)

Job summary

Exponent is seeking a Director of Engineering for AI Accounting in New York. You will own backend systems that ingest franchise operator data, classify and reconcile it, and automate monthly closes.

You will work closely with a tight engineering team to ship to production daily and guide deterministic behavior around ML-driven decisions. You will lead end-to-end ownership of critical platforms, ensuring reliability and scalability while integrating with third‑party APIs and building robust data

Qualifications

• 4+ years of full stack engineering, with end-to-end ownership of systems shipped to production.
• Ruby on Rails, or equivalent depth in another server-side framework with a demonstrated ability to ramp quickly.
• Third-party API integration against unreliable sources: incomplete documentation, no webhook support, undocumented format changes, duplicate or partial data.
• Idempotent data ingestion (deduplication, replay, historical backfill) and background job infrastructure (scheduling, locking, retry and failure handling).
• Production experience with LLMs or ML in a product path, including output validation and failure handling.

Responsibilities

• Own systems end to end: design, build, ship, and operate backend systems in production—from schema to deploy to on-call.
• Make unreliable data reliable: integrate against difficult third-party APIs and design idempotent ingestion.
• Keep every account in sync: manage background jobs with scheduling, locking, retries, and failure handling.
• Put LLMs and ML into the product path: drive decisions on output validation, confidence thresholds, fallbacks, and deterministic behavior.
• Help build a world class growth company: own what you ship and exercise judgment to move faster.

Skills

Full stack engineering

Ruby on Rails

API integration

Data ingestion

LLMs in product

Background job systems

System reliability

Observability

Tools

PostgreSQL

Redis

Sidekiq

Job description

Exponent — Director of Engineering, AI Accounting

Company Description

Exponent is the fastest-growing financial technology platform built exclusively for franchise and multi-location brand operators. We offer three integrated products — industry-leading financing programs including a charge card, acquisition and build-out loans, and an AI-powered Accountant — giving operators a single platform to manage spend, access growth capital, and automate their financial operations. We have secured significant equity and credit capital and are backed by leading institutional investors and family offices who operate large franchise portfolios.

Role Description

The role will own core systems inside our AI-powered Accountant — the product that ingests a franchise operator’s POS, banking, payroll, and processor data, classifies and reconciles it, and automates the monthly close. You will be hand‑on, working alongside a tightly knit, experienced engineering team that ships to production every day. This is a individual contributor role with a path to leading engineers as the team grows.

What You’ll Do

• Own systems end to end: Design, build, ship, and operate backend systems in production — from schema to deploy to on‑call. You own what you built after it goes live.
• Make unreliable data reliable: Integrate against difficult third‑party APIs and design ingestion that is idempotent by default — deduplication, safe replay, historical backfill — so every source can be re‑pulled and re‑processed without corrupting the ledger.
• Keep every account in sync: Own the background job infrastructure that keeps thousands of accounts in sync — scheduling, locking, retries, failure handling, and the observability to know when a sync silently stopped. A stuck job is a product bug, not an ops chore.
• Put LLMs and ML into the product path: LLMs and ML models already do the classification and reconciliation work in the product, and we are taking it from build to first pilots now — the point where the decisions about output validation, confidence thresholds, fallbacks, and failure handling actually get made. You will make them. Make a probabilistic component behave inside a system that has to be deterministic where it matters.
• Help build a world class growth company: We are a small, experienced team with broad scope. Every engineer owns what they ship and is expected to exercise judgment rather than wait for direction. Get deep on how technology enables Exponent and its customers to move faster with better experiences and results.

Requirements

• 4+ years of full stack engineering, with end-to-end ownership of systems shipped to production
• Ruby on Rails, or equivalent depth in another server‑side framework with a demonstrated ability to ramp quickly
• Third-party API integration against unreliable sources: incomplete documentation, no webhook support, undocumented format changes, duplicate or partial data
• Idempotent data ingestion (deduplication, replay, historical backfill) and background job infrastructure (scheduling, locking, retry and failure handling)
• Production experience with LLMs or ML in a product path, including output validation and failure handling

Preferred Requirements

• POS or restaurant data systems: Square, Toast, Qu, Revel, delivery platform payouts, processor settlement files
• Accounting platform integration: QuickBooks Online, Sage Intacct, NetSuite, Restaurant365
• Ledger, double-entry, or reconciliation system design
• Classification model work with measurable evaluation
• CSV and file-based import pipelines at scale

Key Information

Competitive base salary + equity

Hybrid role based in New York, NY; our office is in Flatiron.

Company-sponsored benefits (PTO, Healthcare, HSA/FSA, 401(k)) are included