Software Engineer

Ethos-Life; San Francisco (CA); Hybrid; USD 96,000 - 169,000; Full time

Job summary

Ethos-Life in San Francisco is hiring a Software Engineer to build scalable platform services across the stack. You’ll work with engineers, PMs, and other stakeholders to ship features, APIs, and high‑performing code in a modular, secure way.

This hybrid role requires 2 days in the office and 3 days remote each week; relocation to SF is welcomed. You’ll contribute to internal standards and architectures, with emphasis on performance and reliability.

Qualifications

• 2–5 years of software engineering experience.
• Experience with design patterns, code reviews, and testing.
• Strong communication of technical specs, verbal and written.

Responsibilities

• Design, build and maintain complex fullstack systems
• Collaborate with engineers, PMs and stakeholders to ship features
• Design, build, and maintain our APIs
• Find and solve performance issues
• Participate in code reviews and communicate best practices

Skills

React

HTML/CSS

APIs

Security

Testing

Code reviews

Feature flags

Web performance

Distributed systems

Backend architecture

Logging/monitoring

Webpack

CS fundamentals

Integrations

Tools

Iterable

Twilio

Salesforce

Regal

Job description

Ethos is a leading life insurance technology company on a mission to protect families by democratizing access to life insurance and empowering agents at scale. With its robust three-sided technology platform, Ethos is transforming the life insurance experience for consumers, agents, and carriers alike. Ethos offers instant, accessible products and a seamless online process that requires no medical exams and just a few health questions; it eliminates traditional barriers, making it easier than ever for everyone to protect their families. Ethos is redefining how life insurance is bought, sold, and underwritten.

About the Role

As a Software Engineer, you'll work across the stack and be responsible for building scalable platform services and systems. You’ll work closely with other engineers to build and ship key features. We are detail oriented and value clean, modular, and high-performing code. You'll help architect and build our internal standards and frameworks. You are preferably located in San Francisco or willing to relocate. This is a hybrid role with at least 2 days in office and 3 days remote each week.

Responsibilities

• Design, build and maintain complex fullstack systems
• Collaborate with other engineers, PMs and non-technical stakeholders to develop and ship features
• Design, build, and maintain our API’s
• Find and solve performance issues
• Participate in code reviewsCommunicate best practices to the team

Qualifications

• 2-5 years of relevant experience in a software engineering role
• Experienced with software engineering best practices – design patterns, code reviews, unit and integration testing, etc.
• Ability to communicate technical specifications both verbal and written
• Understanding of security, common attacks and defenses
• Experience shipping features behind an A/B testing or feature flag platform, such as Optimizely
• Ability to succinctly communicate technical specifications both verbal and written
• Command over front-end web technologies such as HTML, CSS and React
• Familiar with optimizing Core Web Vitals and loading speed performance
• Experience building complex architecture systems from the ground up, experience with backend architectural patterns of large, high-scale web applications
• Expert at leveraging agentic coding tools (e.g., Claude Code, Cursor, Copilot) to accelerate development workflows and improve engineering productivity
• Ability to design clean APIs and understanding of performance issues
• Knowledge of mobile first responsive styling methodologies
• Experience working with third‑party lifecycle communication infrastructure, including platforms like Iterable, Twilio, Salesforce, and Regal, to orchestrate multi‑channel customer engagement
• Solid CS fundamentals – including data structures and algorithms
• Knowledge of build systems configurations and setup - such as Webpack
• Experience with infrastructure, distributed systems, and deploying apps into a high‑scale environment with integrated logging and monitoring technologies

The US national base salary range for this full‑time position is $96,000 - $169,000. Our salary ranges are determined by role, level, and location. The range displayed on each job posting reflects the minimum and maximum target for new hire salaries for the position across all US locations. Within the range, individual pay is determined by work location and additional factors, including job‑related skills, experience, and relevant education or training.

We are an equal opportunity employer. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status. Pursuant to the SF Fair Chance Ordinance, we will consider employment for qualified applicants with arrests and conviction records.