Sr. Software Engineer - Resident Onboarding

Appfolio; Chicago (IL); On-site; USD 138,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

AppFolio is seeking a Senior Software Engineer to join the Resident Onboarding team and become a technical domain expert in making the transition effortless for new residents. You will shape end-to-end onboarding systems, integrate with partners, and model data for reliability.

This role suits engineers who think in systems, care about long-term code architecture, and want to set technical direction on a small, empowered team.

Qualifications

• Proven ownership of multi-service architecture from design to production support.
• Experience with production web services in Ruby on Rails, Go, or comparable stack.
• Strong communication and ability to influence engineers who do not report to you.
• Experience integrating with third-party services and data pipelines.
• Commitment to long-term maintainability and refactoring.

Responsibilities

• Own the resident onboarding domain end to end.
• Design the service architecture for onboarding and data pipelines.
• Lead design reviews and drive decisions with trade-offs.
• Develop scalable, robust solutions and refactor when needed.
• Define observability and alerting standards.
• Mentor engineers through code reviews and pairing.
• Work in an agile fashion with small deliverables.
• Ensure high quality with thorough test coverage and swift escalation handling.

Skills

5+ years experience

Systems architecture

Rails/Go experience

Communication skills

Technical leadership

Tools

Ruby on Rails

Go

React

MySQL

AWS

SOA

Job description

Description

AppFolio is more than a company. We're a community of dreamers, big thinkers, problem solvers, active listeners, and multipliers. At every opportunity, we set the pace while delivering innovation built to carry real estate into the future. One in which every experience feels effortless, yet meaningful. Where customers are empowered to take on any opportunity. We show up as one team, connected by our values to be a force for good. Because together, we have the power to create extraordinary outcomes for our customers, our communities, and ourselves.

Who we are looking for:

Moving is one of the most stressful events in a person's life. Between signing a lease and settling in, a new resident has to set up utilities, secure renters insurance, and coordinate with a property team that is juggling dozens of other move‑ins. Most of that work is still manual, fragmented across vendors, and easy to get wrong. We are hiring a Senior Software Engineer to join the Resident Onboarding team and become a technical domain expert in making that transition effortless.

This is a domain that gets complicated quickly. Utility providers vary by address and change without notice. Insurance requirements differ by property and jurisdiction. Partner systems are unreliable, data arrives incomplete, and every gap surfaces as a phone call to a property manager on move‑in day. We combine automated research, partner integrations, and careful data modeling to close those gaps before the resident ever notices them. Our systems serve every new resident on AppFolio's Real Estate Performance Management platform.

This is an ideal opportunity for an engineer who thinks in systems, cares about the shape of a codebase years from now, and wants to set technical direction on a small, empowered team. You will be the engineer others look to when a design decision is hard.

Your impact

• Build a deep understanding of the resident onboarding domain, enabling you and your team to truly own it end to end
• Design and evolve the service architecture for onboarding, including partner integrations, data pipelines, and the interfaces other AppFolio teams build against
• Lead design reviews, author technical proposals, and drive decisions to closure with clear trade‑off analysis
• Develop scalable, robust, and simple solutions to complex business problems, refactoring or starting fresh when it makes sense
• Define observability and alerting standards for the team's services so that every alert is actionable and every incident has a clear owner
• Mentor and guide other engineers through in‑depth code review, pairing, and healthy technical debate
• Work in a truly agile fashion to turn a large, unruly problem into thinly sliced deliverables and execute quickly against them
• Prioritize quality. Thoughtful test coverage is a given and any escalations from external stakeholders like our onboarding or customer care teams are handled and resolved swiftly. Exceptions should be exceptional.

Qualifications

• Have deep command of software architecture and design patterns, and can explain when a pattern applies and when it does not
• Can reason through a system design in real time, defend it under scrutiny, and change position when presented with a better argument
• Have integrated with third‑party services and built resilient pipelines around unreliable external data
• Write designs clearly enough that engineers outside your team can build against them
• Care about the long‑term maintainability of the codebase and advocate for refactoring and code cleanliness
• Use modern tools, including AI‑assisted development, while remaining the accountable author of every design decision you ship
• You don’t need Claude. Claude needs you.

Must have

• 5+ years of professional experience building and operating production web services
• Demonstrated ownership of the architecture of a multi‑service system, from design through production support
• Production experience with Ruby on Rails, Go, or a comparable web stack, with willingness to work in both
• Crisp communication skills: you know how to be heard and better‑yet… listen
• Track record of leading technical design across a team and influencing engineers who do not report to you

Nice to have

• Experience with our stack: Ruby on Rails, Go, React, MySQL, AWS, service‑oriented architecture
• Experience integrating with utility, insurance, or other consumer‑service providers
• Experience with production observability tooling and on‑call practices
• Hatred for JIRA but willing to keep it to yourself

Location

Find out more about our locations by visiting our site.

All late‑stage candidates complete an in‑person meeting with an AppFolian as part of our hiring process.

Compensation & Benefits

The base salary that we reasonably expect to pay for this role is 138,400 - $190,300. The actual base salary for this role will be determined by a variety of factors, including but not limited to the candidate's skills, education, experience, etc.

Please note that base pay is one important aspect of a compelling Total Rewards package. The base pay range indicated here does not include any additional benefits or bonuses/commissions that you may be eligible for based on your role and/or employment type.

Regular full‑time employees are eligible for benefits - see here.

About AppFolio

AppFolio is the technology leader powering the future of the real estate industry. Our innovative platform and trusted partnership enable our customers to connect communities, increase operational efficiency, and grow their business. For more information about AppFolio, visit appfolio.com.

Why AppFolio

Grow

We enable a culture of high performance, where delivering results is recognized by opportunities for growth and compelling total rewards. Our challenging and meaningful work drive the growth of our business, and ourselves.

Learn

We partner with you to realize your potential by investing in you from the start. We're cultivating a team of big thinkers through coaching and mentorship with our best‑in‑class leaders, and giving you the time and tools to develop your skills.

Impact

We are creating a world where living in, investing in, managing, and supporting communities feels magical and effortless, freeing people to thrive. We do this by innovating with purpose while cultivating a culture of impact. We learn as much from each other as we do our customers and our communities.

Connect

We excel at hybrid work by fostering an environment that feels flexible, personal and connected, no matter where we are. We create space to fuel innovation and collaboration, and we come together to celebrate, connect, and succeed.

Learn more at appfolio.com/company/careers

Statement of Equal Opportunity

At AppFolio, we value diversity in backgrounds and perspectives and depend on it to drive our innovative culture. That’s why we’re a proud Equal Opportunity Employer, and we believe that our products, our teams, and our business are stronger because of it. This means that no matter what race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identification, national origin, age, marital status, ancestry, physical or mental disability, or veteran status, you’re always welcome at AppFolio.