Sr. Staff Engineer

Betterment; New York (NY); Hybrid; USD 230,000 - 270,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive equity package

Health, dental and vision insurance

Flexible PTO policy

401(k) with employer match

Variable compensation potential through company incentive bonus

Job summary

Betterment is looking for a Sr Staff Engineer in New York City to lead AI product strategy, working closely with engineering teams to build AI capabilities. This role involves defining the technical direction, mentoring engineers, and partnering with product teams to deliver customer-facing AI features. The position offers a competitive salary ranging from $230,000 to $270,000 annually, along with benefits including equity, health insurance, and a flexible PTO policy.

Qualifications

• Deep expertise in LLM systems, including prompt engineering and evaluation.
• Experience in operational AI features ensuring audit quality.
• Proven track record leading projects affecting multiple teams.

Responsibilities

• Lead the technical direction for Betterment’s AI development strategy.
• Work with product teams to deliver customer-facing AI features.
• Mentor and grow senior engineers to enhance their impact.

Skills

Technical leadership

LLM systems expertise

Full-stack development (React, GraphQL)

Operational experience in production

Sound decision-making

Tools

Ruby

Java

TypeScript

C#

Python

Job description

About Betterment

Betterment is a leading, technology-driven financial services company that offers investing, savings, and retirement solutions for retail investors and investment advisors as well as financial wellness solutions, including a 401(k) for small and medium-sized businesses. Our team is passionate about our mission to empower people to build wealth with confidence and ease. We’re headquartered in NYC and offer hybrid NY-based positions (four days a week in‑office, with no required office days during summer and winter holidays).

About the Role

The AI Platform team enables product teams across Betterment to build useful AI‑powered features quickly, enjoyably, and responsibly. As Sr Staff Engineer, you will work with a team of senior/staff engineers delivering an expanding set of AI capabilities as well as shared infrastructure, LLM evaluation frameworks, and internal libraries.

You will help shape and lead the technical direction of our AI product development strategy, working closely with engineering leadership. You will collaborate with product and compliance partners to ensure Betterment's AI capabilities are developed with the rigor that our customers and regulators expect.

By joining us in the early days of our AI product efforts, you will have significant influence over how the organization delivers exciting features into the Betterment product across all lines of business.

This role is based out of our NYC office.

Base Salary

New York City: $230,000 – $270,000 per year. (Actual salaries may vary based on location, experience, and performance.)

We offer a competitive equity package, health, dental and vision benefits, life and AD&D, short‑term and long‑term disability insurance, EAP, commuter and parking benefits, FSA/HSA, and 401(k) with employer match, as well as a flexible PTO policy. This job may also be eligible for variable compensation in the form of a company incentive bonus.

A day in the life

• Work with a team of senior/staff engineers building the foundation that enables all Betterment teams to deploy AI features.


• Define and drive Betterment's AI platform strategy – the shared infrastructure, evaluation frameworks, internal libraries, and guardrails that allow product teams to build AI features with confidence and speed.


• Lead high‑leverage projects that expand our organization’s AI technical capabilities, where AI organically enhances existing product value.


• Partner with product teams to ship customer‑facing AI functionality to production. Develop broad Betterment domain expertise in the process.


• Partner with legal and compliance leaders to scale processes that enable teams to build AI functionality quickly and responsibly within a regulated financial services environment.


• Mentor and grow senior engineers, sharing your experience to expand their impact and accelerate their growth.

What We’re Looking For

• A strong technical lead capable of establishing the strategic vision for Betterment’s AI systems while also working hands‑on alongside senior and staff IC colleagues to build it into reality.


• Deep expertise in LLM systems, including prompt engineering, agentic workflows, and evaluation systems.


• Experience operating AI features in production, ensuring quality and auditability via online and offline validation, automated monitoring, and human‑in‑the‑loop oversight.


• Comfort operating at the frontier. The ability and drive to stay current with emerging tools, techniques, and best practices within the rapidly evolving AI ecosystem.


• Clear judgment about when to use AI and when not to, maintaining a grounded, pragmatic perspective on what we should ship to production today.


• Proven track record leading successful projects that affect and development workflows used by multiple teams.


• Full‑stack development experience including React, GraphQL, and one or more server‑side languages (Ruby, Java, TypeScript, C#, Python, etc.).


• Experience making sound build‑vs‑buy decisions.


• Ability to build trust and processes that transcend discipline and team boundaries.


• Principled approach to balancing the need to move quickly today with the need to move quickly tomorrow, with an appreciation of how to meet high standards for customer quality and regulatory requirements.

Benefits

• Competitive equity package.


• Health, dental and vision insurance.


• Life and AD&D insurance.


• Short‑term and long‑term disability insurance.


• Employee Assistance Program (EAP).


• Commuter and parking benefits.


• FSA/HSA.


• 401(k) with employer match.


• Flexible PTO policy.


• Variable compensation potential through company incentive bonus.


• Dedicated professional development opportunities.


• Lunch from NYC in‑house chef (NYC headquarters).


• Parental leave and infertility support.

Equal Opportunity & Compliance

Betterment is an equal opportunity employer and complies with all applicable federal, state, and local fair employment practices laws. We strictly prohibit and do not tolerate discrimination against employees, applicants, or any other covered persons because of race, color, religion, creed, national origin or ancestry, ethnicity, sex, gender (including gender nonconformity and status as a transgender or transsexual individual), sexual orientation, marital status, age, physical or mental disability, citizenship, past, current or prospective service in the uniformed services, predisposing genetic characteristic, domestic violence victim status, arrest records, or any other characteristic protected under applicable federal, state or local law.

Betterment participates in E‑Verify. We will provide the Social Security Administration, and if necessary, the Department of Homeland Security, with information from each new employee’s Form I‑9 to confirm work authorization. Please note that we do not use this information to pre‑screen job applicants.

We collect and store personal information for the purposes of candidate tracking (for this role and future opportunities). The information you provide in the course of completing your application will be kept for up to 24 months. We use tools provided by third‑party service providers but do not share candidate information for any purpose other than for recruiting.

Betterment is dedicated to providing accommodations to candidates upon request. If you need accommodations at any point throughout the interview process, please reach out to your recruiter.