Software Engineer (Tech Lead) Engineering · New York City

Kobalt Labs co; New York (NY); On-site; USD 213,000 - 288,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Lunch provided in-office

Comprehensive health benefits for self

Paid time off and holidays

Job summary

Kobalt Labs in New York is seeking a Staff+ Tech Lead to own a major product area end-to-end, shaping architecture and direction while mentoring peers. This highly hands-on role combines leadership with technical execution, spanning backend systems, data models, and customer-facing experiences.

You will drive architectural decisions, collaborate with customers to deeply understand problems, and lead engineers to ship high-impact features as the product and engineering teams scale.

Qualifications

• 7+ years of software engineering experience, or equivalent experience demonstrating Staff+ level technical ownership.
• Track record of owning a substantial product or technical area end-to-end and setting its technical direction.
• Experience leading complex projects across multiple engineers and driving them from ambiguous problem through production.
• Exceptional hands‑on engineering skills; you still want to spend a significant portion of your time writing and reviewing code.
• Strong product instincts and the ability to understand customer problems, make tradeoffs, and determine what should be built rather than waiting for a detailed specification.
• Comfortable operating across the stack and going wherever the hardest or highest‑leverage problem requires.
• Experience as a Staff or Principal Engineer, technical lead, founding engineer/CTO is a plus.

Responsibilities

• Own the technical direction and execution of a major Kobalt product module end-to-end.
• Develop a deep understanding of the customers, workflows, and problems within your product area and use that context to shape what we build.
• Turn ambiguous product and customer problems into technical strategy, architecture, and concrete execution plans.
• Lead complex projects spanning multiple engineers, making the technical decisions and tradeoffs necessary to ship quickly without sacrificing the foundations we'll need as we scale.
• Personally design and build critical parts of the product, from backend systems and data models to customer‑facing experiences.
• Set a high technical bar through architecture, code reviews, engineering practices, and mentorship of other engineers.
• Identify and address technical and product problems before they become neatly scoped projects.
• Help shape Kobalt's broader engineering architecture and culture as both our product surface area and engineering team grow.

Job description

About Kobalt Labs

Kobalt is the AI-native compliance operating system for financial institutions (FIs). Compliance is critical for FIs to get right, but most of their work still happens manually, in legacy technology or Excel.

Banks, credit unions, and fintechs across the country use Kobalt to run third party due diligence, screen marketing collateral, and stay current with the ever-changing regulatory landscape. Since our Series A, we've grown revenue more than 5x and work with some of the most notable names in financial services, including Chime, Upstart, and affirm.

The Role

Engineers at Kobalt own products end-to-end, from understanding the customer problem and shaping the technical approach through building, shipping, and operating the solution in production.

As a Tech Lead, you'll own and drive a major area of Kobalt's product. You'll be responsible for its technical direction and execution, working closely with customers to deeply understand the problems we're solving, determine what we should build, make the architectural decisions behind it, and lead other engineers in getting it shipped.

This is a Staff+ level role, but a highly hands-on one. We're looking for exceptional engineers who want broad ownership and technical leadership while continuing to spend significant time building.

What You'll Do

• Own the technical direction and execution of a major Kobalt product module end-to-end.

• Develop a deep understanding of the customers, workflows, and problems within your product area and use that context to shape what we build.

• Turn ambiguous product and customer problems into technical strategy, architecture, and concrete execution plans.

• Lead complex projects spanning multiple engineers, making the technical decisions and tradeoffs necessary to ship quickly without sacrificing the foundations we'll need as we scale.

• Personally design and build critical parts of the product, from backend systems and data models to customer‑facing experiences.

• Set a high technical bar through architecture, code reviews, engineering practices, and mentorship of other engineers.

• Identify and address technical and product problems before they become neatly scoped projects.

• Help shape Kobalt's broader engineering architecture and culture as both our product surface area and engineering team grow.

Qualifications

• 7+ years of software engineering experience, or equivalent experience demonstrating Staff+ level technical ownership.

• Track record of owning a substantial product or technical area end-to-end and setting its technical direction.

• Experience leading complex projects across multiple engineers and driving them from ambiguous problem through production.

• Exceptional hands‑on engineering skills; you still want to spend a significant portion of your time writing and reviewing code.

• Strong product instincts and the ability to understand customer problems, make tradeoffs, and determine what should be built rather than waiting for a detailed specification.

• Comfortable operating across the stack and going wherever the hardest or highest‐leverage problem requires.

• Experience as a Staff or Principal Engineer, technical lead, founding engineer, or technical founder/CTO is a plus.

Compensation and Benefits

• $250k base salary + equity, with equity based on experience and scope

• Lunch provided in‑office

• 100% employer‑paid medical, dental, and vision premiums for employees and dependents

• Paid time off and paid company holidays