Staff Engineer

Thera (YC S22); New York (NY); On-site; USD 120,000 - 150,000; Full time

Job summary

Thera (YC S22) is looking for a hands-on Staff Engineer in New York City to help define the technical foundation for their innovative financial OS for SMBs. You will drive architecture, technical direction, and engineering execution while mentoring a small team.

The ideal candidate enjoys being close to the code, possesses strong systems thinking, and thrives in a regulated environment. This role demands agility and ownership to enhance product offerings and engineering culture.

Qualifications

• Experience building and scaling real systems.
• Mentored or tech-led engineering teams.
• Comfortable operating in a high-pressure regulated environment.

Responsibilities

• Own architecture and technical direction across payroll and payments.
• Drive engineering execution on complex problems.
• Build systems powering payroll and other financial services.

Skills

Systems thinking

Technical leadership

Hands-on coding

Regulatory environment experience

Tools

TypeScript

Java

Kotlin

Job description

Staff Engineer, Thera (NYC, in-person)

Thera is building the financial OS for modern SMBs. Payroll, payments, treasury, spend, accounting, and docs in one system that actually works end‑to‑end.

We're looking for a hands‑on Staff Engineer to own the technical foundation in our highest‑leverage areas and help us scale from "great product" to category‑defining company.

This is not a sit‑back‑and‑manage role. You'll be in the code, in the architecture, and in the room making high‑stakes decisions daily.

NYC, 5 days/week

Why this role exists

• a product customers use
• real workflows running through it
• increasing complexity across payments, accounting, and ops

What You'll Own

• Architecture and technical direction across payroll, payments, and new products
• Engineering execution on the hardest problems in the stack
• Helping hire and tech‑lead a small, high‑quality team (starting ~5 engineers)
• Decisions on security, reliability, scalability, and compliance in your areas
• Tight partnership with product and ops to translate real workflows into systems
• Roadmaps, prioritization, and actually shipping

What You'll Build

• Systems powering payroll and money movement
• Products across Spend, Docs, Cash, and Accounting
• Internal tooling that reduces manual work and errors
• Infrastructure that increases velocity without breaking things

Your first 90 days

30 days

• Get deep on the system, data flows, and constraints
• Identify the biggest risks (payments, data integrity, scaling)
• Ship a meaningful improvement on the spend product

60 days

• Start addressing the highest‑leverage technical gaps
• Map out future builds across the roadmap
• Begin influencing how we hire and level engineers

90 days

• Set technical direction in your areas
• Improve engineering velocity and reliabilityHelp build out our engineering in‑person culture

About You

• You've built and scaled real systems
• You're still hands‑on and like being close to the code
• Strong systems thinker
• You move fast and take ownership
• Comfortable operating in a regulated environment
• You've mentored or tech‑led engineers before

Stack today: TypeScript + Java/Kotlin (flexible)

Not a fit if

• You want a pure management role
• You avoid ambiguity or messy real‑world systems
• You're not willing to be in‑person in NYC

Why Thera

• You shape the technical foundation in your areas
• You work directly with founders
• Your decisions immediately impact the company's trajectory

Backed by YC, 10X Founders, Zillionize, and Amino Capital.

More: https://www.getthera.com/principles