The OpportunityAs a Software Engineer 1 on the Platform Team, you'll help build the systems and tooling that raise the floor for every engineer at Sydecar. You'll join a collaborative, high-trust team that values ownership, thoughtful execution, and a sustainable pace. Your work - faster pipelines, reliable infrastructure, safer releases, and a stronger security posture - will be felt across the entire engineering organization. This is a great role for an early-career engineer who wants to grow quickly alongside experienced platform engineers.
This is a hybrid role based in San Francisco or New York City with in-office attendance of two to three days per week.
What You'll Do- Build and improve the internal developer platform - CI/CD pipelines, build/deploy automation, and local and preview environments - creating a "golden path" that helps every engineer ship quickly and safely.
- Design, operate, and scale core shared services and cloud infrastructure as code (Terraform), with strong reliability, observability, and cost efficiency.
- Advance release automation and test automation so shipping to production is routine and low-risk, with safe rollout patterns and easy rollbacks.
- Strengthen the platform's security posture and help build a distributed security practice across the engineering org.
- Partner with product teams as an enabler - help build standards and interfaces, and co-build where teams share an interest or have a timely dependency - while keeping the platform focused on general-purpose foundations rather than product-specific work.
- Contribute to projects from concept through deployment, learning to balance speed with scalability.
- Grow through pairing, code review, and mentorship from senior engineers, and take part in architecture discussions.
- Collaborate closely with engineering, product, design, and operations.
What We're Looking For- A strong computer science foundation - data structures, algorithms, and systems fundamentals (degree in CS/related field or equivalent practical experience).
- AI-native: fluent and comfortable using agentic / AI-assisted development tools as part of your everyday workflow.
- Curious, a fast learner, and a self-starter who takes ownership and figures things out.
- A collaborative team player with clear communication skills.
- 0-2 years of professional work experience (internships, co-ops, and substantial personal or academic projects count).
Bonus Qualifications- Fintech experience (payments, compliance, or regulated environments).
- Exposure to internal developer platforms or developer-experience tooling.
- Terraform and GCP familiarity; observability tooling (logging, metrics, tracing).
- Security interest - OWASP-style practices, secrets management, or dependency/vulnerability scanning.
- Exposure to TypeScript/Node.js, NestJS, Prisma, PostgreSQL, and Playwright / React Testing Library.
Our Tech Stack- Frontend: TypeScript and React (mono-repo)
- Backend: TypeScript, NestJS, Prisma
- Database: PostgreSQL
- Testing: Jest, React Testing Library, Playwright
- Design: Figma
- Infrastructure: Terraform (IaC)
