Staff Software Engineer, Backend

Finch; San Francisco (CA); Hybrid; USD 220,000 - 240,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Full medical, dental, and vision coverage

Unlimited PTO

401(k) plan

Job summary

Finch is looking for a Backend Developer with over 10 years of experience to lead backend services for high-volume data processing. You will work in a fast-paced environment, driving product reliability and expansion initiatives while collaborating with cross-functional teams. The role offers hybrid work in SF or NYC and an annual salary between $220,000 and $240,000, alongside competitive equity and exceptional benefits.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of relevant backend development experience in a high-growth environment.
• Track record of executing and delivering on large projects with high ambiguity.
• Exposure to high-growth start-ups.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and maintain services for high-volume data processing.
• Lead product reliability and expansion initiatives.
• Deploy code daily.

Skills

Backend development experience

Knowledge of APIs

System design skills

Strong communication skills

Tools

NodeJS

PostgreSQL

Redis

AWS

Job description

Overview

Finch is on a mission to revolutionize employment by building the infrastructure that powers every facet of work. We are looking for individuals who think about problems holistically and in-depth, who are relentlessly curious, self-starters, and determined to drive ideas from inception through to completion.

Finch is a Series B company backed by a fantastic set of firms, angels, and our developers, including General Catalyst, Menlo Ventures, Homebrew, BoxGroup, YCombinator, Charley (1st business hire at Plaid), Sima (ex-Head of Biz Dev at Plaid), Henrique + Pedro (co-CEOs at Brex), Jeff + Wayne (co-CEOs at Digits), Immad (CEO at Mercury), Sam (CEO at Vouch Insurance), Karim (CTO at Ramp), and more.

About Our Team

We are a team of problem solvers who aren’t afraid to challenge assumptions. We value velocity, curiosity, empathy, and diverse perspectives. Everyone on the team is excited about the scope of the problems we address and the potential impact our work can have on the global workforce. We make security and privacy our highest priorities.

We come from diverse backgrounds; you’re encouraged to apply even if your experience doesn’t precisely match the job description. Your skills and potential will stand out—especially if your career has taken extraordinary twists and turns.

About You

You love breaking down complex problems to deliver elegant experiences to customers. You possess a balance of technology and people skills with a high degree of empathy. You thrive in ambiguity, narrowing high-level problems into engineering solutions.

You coordinate across product, engineering, and support teams to ensure you’re delivering the right solution for the right problem and that all parties are aligned. You value customers and peers and want to succeed as a team.

You’re comfortable wearing many hats, ready to execute, and excited by working on an API product that powers many of the world’s most impactful applications.

What You'll Do (Responsibilities)

• Live by and champion our values: empathy, execution, humility, curiosity.
• Design, build, and maintain powerful services to enable processing of high volumes of data across a wide array of complex employment system integrations.
• Influence organizational direction by driving alignment on strategic initiatives and architectural best practices and leading by example.
• Lead the charge on product reliability and expansion initiatives, including horizontal expansion of existing integrations to increase data coverage and depth, and greenfield development in new product verticals.
• Lead large initiatives spanning multiple teams from problem definition to engineering scoping to execution to ensure valuable and impactful solutions for customers.
• Deploy code daily.
• Understand roadmap priorities and build systems focused on scalability, testability, and maintainability.
• Quickly debug issues across the stack using modern observability tooling and a solid engineering foundation.

What You'll Bring (Qualifications)

• 10+ years of relevant backend development experience in a high-growth environment.
• Customer-obsessed mindset; customer needs always take priority.
• Track record of executing and delivering on large projects with high ambiguity.
• Detail-oriented approach to large-scale challenges with the ability to work cross-functionally to drive initiatives from inception through to launch.
• Strong, but loosely held, opinions on building a healthy engineering organization.
• Collaborative mindset with experience mentoring and leveling up engineers.
• Exposure to high-growth start-ups; thrives in fast-moving environments where work directly impacts company success.
• Technical understanding of the software development process.
• Excellent written and oral business communication and people skills with the ability to influence stakeholders, including technical peers, leaders, and executive management.

Success Looks Like

• Deep experience working with APIs and backend technologies.
• Strong system-design skills and deep expertise with distributed systems.
• Knowledge of data tools and ETL/ELT processes.
• Experience working with NodeJS, PostgreSQL, Redis.
• Familiar with API authentication and authorization methods; particularly OAuth.
• Experience using a cloud provider; AWS is a bonus.
• Strong knowledge of testing frameworks and best practices; TDD is encouraged.

What We Offer (Benefits)

• Competitive equity with a 10-year exercise window.
• Full medical, dental, and vision coverage (100% for employees, 85% for dependents).
• Unlimited PTO (with a 3-week minimum).
• 401(k) plan.
• Regular team offsites and meetups.
• Hybrid work: 2+ days/week in our SF or NYC.

Salary: $220,000 - $240,000 a year. Finch’s compensation package includes a competitive base salary benchmarked against real-time market data, as well as equity for all full-time roles. Our equity grants include a 10-year exercise window. We also offer exceptional benefits and, for applicable roles, commissions plans. Final offers may vary based on geography, candidate experience, and other factors.

Finch is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran status, race, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable laws, regulations, and ordinances. Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, we will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.