Software Engineer - Internal Operations and Tools

Tereina; San Diego (CA); On-site; USD 120,000 - 170,000; Full time

Job summary

Tereina is hiring a Software Engineer for Internal Operations and Tools to build AI-enabled agents and internal tools for payment operations and analytics. You will join as the first engineer on a new team reporting to the CTO, shaping the tech, practices, and culture as it grows.

In this role, you will design, build, and ship end-to-end AI agents, integrate with backend services, and collaborate with the Payments Operations team to automate daily tasks while maintaining security and compliance.

Qualifications

• 3+ years in software engineering, backend or full-stack shipped to production.
• Hands-on AI with LLMs using enterprise agent frameworks and Google ADK.
• Proficiency in Java and Spring Boot, Python, or TypeScript with REST APIs and SQL.
• Familiarity with cloud platforms (GCP preferred), containers and Kubernetes.
• Fluent use of AI coding assistants (Claude Code, Copilot).
• Owns projects end-to-end with minimal supervision in early-stage environments.
• Curious, quick learner, and able to explain capabilities and limits to non-technical users.

Responsibilities

• Build agentic tools that automate payment operations and agent-based workflows.
• Automate payment operations to reduce manual work and resolution time.
• Develop internal analytics and explainable AI reports across platforms.
• Create secure platform integrations between agents and backend services.
• Design evaluations, tests, and monitoring for AI tools in production.
• Apply least-privilege access and auditability for security and data protection.
• Prototype rapidly with new models and frameworks for team-wide adoption.

Skills

Software engineering

Applied AI with LLMs

Google ADK

Java / Spring Boot

Python or TypeScript

REST APIs & SQL

Kubernetes / Cloud

AI tooling (Copilot / Claude Code)

Ownership & autonomy

Communication

Tools

Kubernetes

BigQuery

Jira Service Management

GitHub Copilot

Job description

About Tereina

Tereina is on a mission to revolutionize B2B payments. We’re a well-funded, early-stage startup supported by one of the largest software companies in the world, SAP. We’re building cutting-edge solutions that will transform the way businesses move money. Our platform handles cross-border payment processing, counterparty management, bank account administration, and compliance workflows for enterprise customers worldwide.

The Internal Operations and Tools team is a new team, reporting directly to our CTO, that builds AI agents and internal tools into the Tereina platform. Its mission is to let a small team operate a global payments business at scale — automating how we investigate and resolve payment exceptions, reconcile transactions, and triage operational work, and giving everyone in the company fast, trustworthy answers from our data. The team builds on our Java and Spring Boot microservices running on Kubernetes, our event-driven messaging, and the latest large language models and agent frameworks.

About the Role

Reporting directly to the CTO, the Software Engineer – Internal Operations and Tools will be the first engineer on a new team focused on building agentic tools into the Tereina platform for payment operations and internal analytics. You will design, build, and ship AI agents and internal tools end to end, working side by side with our Payment Operations team to automate the work they do every day.

This is a role for someone who is hungry, works hard, and gets energy from trying new things. The AI landscape moves every week — you will experiment quickly, keep what works, and take it all the way to production on real financial workflows. As the first engineer, you will help shape the team’s technology, practices, and culture as it grows.

Key Responsibilities

• Build Agentic Tools: Design and implement AI agents that use Tereina’s APIs, data, and workflows to investigate and resolve operational issues — payment exceptions, held and failed payments, reconciliation breaks, and operational tickets — with clear human review and approval points.

• Automate Payment Operations: Work directly with operators to understand their workflows, identify the highest-value automation opportunities, and ship tools that measurably reduce manual work and time to resolution.

• Internal Analytics: Build AI-assisted analytics and reporting that let teams ask questions of our payments data in plain language and get accurate, explainable answers, while keeping our customers data secure and adhering to our data sharing policies.

• Platform Integration: Build secure tool and data integrations — APIs, MCP servers, event consumers, and ticketing integrations — between agents and our backend services and data systems.

• Evaluate & Harden: Create evaluations, tests, and monitoring that keep our AI tools accurate, safe, and reliable as models, data, and workflows change.

• Security & Auditability: Apply least-privilege access, audit logging, and data-protection practices appropriate for a regulated payments business.

• Explore & Experiment: Rapidly prototype with new models, frameworks, and techniques, and share what you learn with the wider engineering team.

Qualifications

• Experience: 3+ years in software engineering, building and shipping backend or full-stack systems to production.

• Applied AI: Hands-on experience building applications with large language models, using enterprise agentic frameworks — tool use / function calling, agents, retrieval, or prompt engineering. Experience with Google ADK in real work scenarios is a must.

• Technical Foundation: Proficiency in Java and Spring Boot, Python, or TypeScript, with a solid understanding of REST APIs, SQL, and relational databases.

• Cloud & Systems: Familiarity with cloud platforms (GCP preferred), containers and Kubernetes, and distributed systems fundamentals.

• AI Tooling Proficiency: Daily, fluent use of modern AI coding assistants (e.g., Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, or similar) to move faster and raise code quality.

• Drive & Ownership: Hungry, high-energy, and self-directed — you take ownership end to end and are comfortable working with ambiguity in an early-stage environment.

• Curiosity & Innovation: Genuinely excited to try new things, learn quickly, and challenge the way things have always been done.

• Communication: Able to work directly with non-technical users, understand their problems, and explain clearly what your tools can and cannot do.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with agent frameworks and protocols (e.g., Model Context Protocol, Google ADK, LangGraph).

• Experience building internal tools, admin consoles, or operations workflows.

• Data and analytics experience (e.g., BigQuery, SQL modeling, dashboards).

• Experience in payments, banking, treasury, or another regulated financial environment — including payment exceptions, returns, and reconciliation.

• Experience with durable workflow orchestration (e.g., Temporal) and message-driven systems (e.g., Google Pub/Sub, Kafka).

• Familiarity with Jira Service Management or similar ticketing and workflow platforms, including automation and integrations.

• Familiarity with SAP ERP payment processes or embedded finance within enterprise ERP systems.

• Familiarity with GCP and infrastructure as code.

Why Join?

• Growth: Own the platform and the operations function end-to-end, and expand your scope across new products, rails, partners, and markets as we scale.

• Impact: Shape how payments operations scale at a fast-moving B2B payments company.

• Innovation: Work at the intersection of payments operations and AI-enabled automation.

• Culture: Join a collaborative team that values curiosity, inclusion, and sustainable work.

We are looking for curious, driven builders who want to create secure, scalable, user-friendly payments products. If you do not meet every qualification but bring initiative and a growth mindset, we encourage you to apply.

We embrace AI as a powerful tool for innovation and welcome team members eager to leverage it in their work. As an equal opportunity employer, we’re committed to diversity, inclusion, and creating an environment where everyone can thrive.