Senior Software Engineer - Backend

• Location: San Francisco Bay Area, CA strongly preferred - hybrid from our San Ramon office (3 days a week); Core hours 7:00 AM - 4:00 PM PT.
• Compensation: The US base salary range for this full-time position is $120,000 - $180,000 + up to 15% performance-based bonus. The position is eligible for performance-based equity compensation.
• Work Authorization: Candidates must be authorized to work in the United States on a full-time basis. Visa sponsorship is not available for this position.

Position Overview

We're seeking a talented Senior Backend Engineer to design, support, and scale the services at the heart of the ARIVE platform - the engine powering loan originations for thousands of independent mortgage brokers nationwide. You'll work hands-on with Node.js, TypeScript, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, AWS, and Docker, partnering closely with product, frontend, and DevOps teams to ship high-quality, cloud-native features at startup speed.

A key part of this role is production ownership - partnering with our support team to troubleshoot at-scale production issues, driving root cause to resolution, and hardening the platform so problems stay fixed. You'll also coordinate closely with our US architects and India-based engineering team for new features. This is a high-ownership role for an engineer who loves solving hard distributed-systems and data problems in a domain where reliability, performance, and security truly matter. You'll take end-to-end ownership of major workstreams alongside our most senior architects - freeing them to focus on next-generation platform initiatives. Join us and make a meaningful, sustainable impact alongside some of the industry's brightest minds.

Key Responsibilities

• Design & Build: Architect, develop, and maintain scalable RESTful APIs and backend services using Node.js and TypeScript, powering mission-critical loan origination workflows.
• Data Engineering: Design efficient database schemas and optimize queries and migrations across PostgreSQL and MongoDB; implement caching strategies (e.g., Redis) for high-throughput workloads.
• Cloud & Containers: Build, test, and deploy containerized applications with Docker; deploy and operate services on AWS (EC2, Lambda, RDS, S3, SQS).
• DevOps Collaboration: Partner with DevOps to strengthen CI/CD pipelines, infrastructure-as-code, and observability (logging, metrics, tracing, alerting).
• Reliability & Security: Champion system reliability, performance, and secure coding best practices - our platform handles sensitive borrower data, and we operate in a SOC 2 Type II environment where security is a first-class engineering concern.
• Production Ownership: Partner with our Support team as an engineering point of contact for escalated production issues at scale - triage, root-cause, and resolve end-to-end, then land the permanent fix, alerting, and runbooks so issues don't recur. Drive performance optimization across the backend and data layers.
• Global Collaboration: Coordinate daily with our India-based engineering team - handoffs, code reviews, and design alignment - keeping core hours of 7:00 AM - 4:00 PM PT to maximize morning overlap.
• Technical Leadership: Lead technical design sessions and code reviews, mentor mid-level engineers, and contribute to product planning and architectural roadmaps.

Things We Look For

• Experience: 5+ years of hands-on backend engineering experience with most, if not all, of the following: Node.js, TypeScript, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, AWS, and Docker.
• API & Systems Design: Strong command of RESTful API design, microservices and event-driven architectures, and message queues (e.g., SQS, Kafka, RabbitMQ).
• Data Fluency: Deep experience with both relational and NoSQL data modeling, query optimization, indexing strategies, and zero-downtime migrations.
• Quality Mindset: Solid habits around automated testing (unit, integration, E2E), code review, and CI/CD; you ship fast without breaking things.
• Security Awareness: Working knowledge of secure SDLC practices - authN/authZ patterns (OAuth 2.0, JWT), OWASP Top 10, and handling sensitive data in a regulated environment.
• Observability: Experience with monitoring and APM tooling (e.g., Datadog, CloudWatch, New Relic) and a bias toward measuring before optimizing.
• Escalation Experience: You've served as an engineering point of contact for support escalations and stay calm and methodical when debugging live production systems under pressure.
• AI-Forward: You leverage AI coding tools to maximize your speed and output - and are excited to help build AI-powered capabilities into the platform.
• Startup DNA: Proactive, self-directed, and comfortable with ambiguity; you thrive in a fast-paced, high-ownership environment and communicate clearly across teams.
• Bonus Points: FinTech, mortgage, or other regulated-industry experience; familiarity with LOS/POS platforms or the loan origination lifecycle is a strong plus.

What We Offer

• Compensation: The US base salary range for this full-time position is $120,000 - $180,000 + up to 15% performance-based bonus. The position is eligible for performance-based equity compensation. Our salary ranges are determined by location, level, and role; individual compensation will be determined by experience, skills, and job-related knowledge.
• Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision insurance.
• 401(k) plan with employer match.
• Generous PTO policy.
• Endless learning and growth opportunities in a fast-paced, growth-mode startup environment.
• A supportive, inclusive, and high-performance company culture.