Software Engineer

Column; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 130,000 - 250,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health, dental & vision plans

Fertility benefits via Carrot

Rent subsidy near office

FSA and HSA options

401k plan

Flexible time-off

Paid parental leave

Backup childcare reimbursements

Catered lunches & dinners

Commuter benefits

Team building events

Job summary

Column is building financial technology and a transparent banking stack. You’ll own core infrastructure powering payments, developer tools, and platform services as Column scales to handle billions daily.

This role emphasizes performance and reliability, with direct integrations to the Federal Reserve and real-time networks, CI/CD pipelines, and robust observability. Column offers strong compensation, equity, and comprehensive benefits.

Responsibilities

• Build and maintain critical infrastructure: compute, storage, networking, security, and observability systems
• Own core banking infrastructure, including direct integrations with the Federal Reserve and real-time payment networks
• Design and implement CI/CD pipelines, developer tooling, and release engineering workflows
• Improve system resiliency and availability through better monitoring, testing, and automation
• Lead platform initiatives like authentication/authorization, change data capture, and cross-cutting APIs
• Operate close to the metal: optimize performance, reliability, and correctness across our systems
• Uphold the highest standards for system safety, especially in a regulated, mission-critical environment

Job description

For companies building financial technology and transforming the financial services space, the biggest bottleneck to their growth and innovation is often the underlying banks and infrastructure stack they rely on. We have spent our careers founding and scaling companies like Plaid, Square, Meta, Blend, and Affl, and have seen this problem firsthand — builders and developers needing to partner with traditional banks, and creating API and abstraction layers over the patchwork that is the bank, its core, and many other vendors. All of this results in a complex (and often expensive) banking supply chain involving a user, fintech, BaaS middleware provider, bank, core and the Federal Reserve.

At Column, we set out to simplify and fix this. We are a bank and a software company built from the ground up, offering builders and developers technology-forward banking solutions that cut out the hundreds of vendors, middleware providers, and abstraction layers. This means a safer, more transparent, and less costly banking supply chain. Come build with us!

The Opportunity

You’ll be responsible for building and maintaining the systems that power everything at Column - from our payments stack to developer tools to core platform services. This role is perfect for someone who thrives at the intersection of infrastructure, software, and financial systems. Expect to own core parts of our infrastructure and shape the technical foundation of a company moving billions of dollars per day.

Read more about Life @ Column and our hiring process here.

What You’ll Do

• Build and maintain critical infrastructure: compute, storage, networking, security, and observability systems
• Own core banking infrastructure, including direct integrations with the Federal Reserve and real-time payment networks
• Design and implement CI/CD pipelines, developer tooling, and release engineering workflows
• Improve system resiliency and availability through better monitoring, testing, and automation
• Lead platform initiatives like authentication/authorization, change data capture, and cross-cutting APIs
• Operate close to the metal: optimize performance, reliability, and correctness across our systems
• Uphold the highest standards for system safety, especially in a regulated, mission-critical environment

What You’ll Get From Us

• Comprehensive health, dental, and vision plans, including options that are 100% covered by Column for you and 100% covered for your dependents!
• Comprehensive family planning and fertility benefits via partnership with Carrot, including reimbursement of up to $20,000 in qualified expenses
• Up to $2,000 (post-tax) monthly rent subsidy for employees living within 2 miles of Column’s office
• FSA and HSA account options to enable use of pre-tax money for medical and dependent care expenses
• 401k plan, including self-directed brokerage options
• Flexible time-off policy - take the time off that you want and need to relax and recharge
• 100% paid parental leave, including 16 weeks for birth mothers, 12 weeks for primary caregivers, and 8 weeks for secondary caregivers
• Up to $4,500 in annual reimbursements for backup childcare
• Catered lunches and dinners for SF employees
• Commuter benefits, including paid transportation to-and-from the office
• Regular team building events, including annual offsite

Pay Transparency

Compensation packages at Column include base salary, equity, and benefits. New hire offers are made based on a candidate's experience, expertise, geographic location, and internal pay equity relative to peers.

The annual US base salary range for this role is $130,000-$250,000 + equity.

We look forward to hearing from you

Column is committed to working with the best and brightest people from the broadest talent pool possible. We value bringing together a team with different perspectives, educational backgrounds, and life experiences, and believe a diversity of ideas is what allows us to develop the best solutions. All qualified individuals are encouraged to apply.

If you need assistance or a reasonable accommodation during the application and recruiting process, please reach out to [e-mail].

We participate in the E-Verify program in certain locations as required by law. Learn more about the E-Verify program here.