Staff Engineer

Thera; New York (NY); On-site; USD 120,000 - 160,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Direct impact on the company’s trajectory

Work with founders

Mentorship opportunities

Job summary

Thera is seeking a hands-on Staff Engineer in New York City to own the technical foundations of their financial OS for modern SMBs. You will lead architecture decisions and partner with product teams to build impactful systems across payroll, payments, and accounting.

Your role involves ensuring reliability, security, and scalability while mentoring a small team of engineers. This role is in-person, contributing directly to Thera's trajectory in a fast-paced environment.

Qualifications

• Built and scaled real systems.
• Strong systems thinker and fast mover.
• Mentored or tech-led engineers.

Responsibilities

• Own architecture and technical direction.
• Lead engineering execution on challenging problems.
• Partner closely with product and operations teams.

Skills

System thinking

Hands-on coding

Team leadership

Technical direction

Ability to work in regulated environments

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 reliability


• Help 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.