Who We Are

Cardless is a fintech startup. Our mission is to make consumer credit more accessible, useful, and engaging, and we do that by partnering with brands to help them launch financial products.

We've begun with a focus on co-branded credit cards. Some of the brands we've already launched cards with are and Simon (the largest mall operator in the US)! Our cards are digital-first, consumer-friendly, and tailored to both brands & their customers with delightful discounts & rewards.

Read more about our business, our product, and what it's like to work at Cardless in our blog and and from industry experts:

View from the Wing in 2021. Our investors include top VCs like Activant, Accomplice, and Greycroft; founders from successful startups like Plaid, SeatGeek, and FiveStars; and executives from major sports teams like the Boston Celtics and Phoenix Suns.

The Role

Powering digital-first and consumer-friendly credit cards is no easy task! Behind the scenes, we need to integrate with a number of third-party services (like card networks, payment processors, and credit bureaus), solve tricky distributed systems problems (like eventual consistency and idempotent workflows), and balance a number of needs (like security, reliability, performance, time-to-market, and compliance).

built primarily with Java, gRPC, and AWS tools like DynamoDB, EKS (hosted Kubernetes), and API Gateway. We also use services like Datadog (observability), LaunchDarkly (feature flags & experimentation), and VeryGoodSecurity (tokenization) to achieve a lot with a little.

We're seeking Backend Engineers with diverse backgrounds & complementary skillsets who are passionate about building quality systems & services and achieving real-world impact. You may be a generalist who's excited to work in many domains, or you may prefer to go deep in a few (e.g. helping us build an extensible rules engine or a highly reliable ledger).

Besides writing & reviewing code, you'll plan work, write tech specs & review design docs, lead projects, collaborate across disciplines (e.g. with PM, design, compliance & partnerships), and mentor other engineers.

The Requirements

Research has shown that women & underrepresented minorities read lists of requirements and consider themselves unqualified if they don't meet every single one. This list represents what we're ideally looking for, but we encourage you to apply even if you don't meet everything 100%. Everyone has unique strengths & weaknesses, and we hire for strength & potential, not lack of weakness.

• Experience designing backend services & systems and scaling them in production. This is more important to us than a specific # of years of experience, but we expect most engineers to need at least 3-5 years in the industry to gain this experience.

• Experience leading projects, planning work, collaborating cross-functionally, and mentoring other engineers. A high-functioning, collaborative, and supportive environment is important to us, and you'll play an important role in fostering that.

• Broad, high-level expertise across a modern application stack (covering e.g. databases, infrastructure, CI/CD, APIs, client apps, queueing, etc.).

• Deep, low-level expertise in some backend domain (e.g. databases, scaling, or distributed systems), in the technology/platform of your choice.

• Passion for both your craft (building things right) and achieving real-world impact (building the right things for our business & customers).

Location

We're headquartered in San Francisco, CA, with a beautiful office in the Mission District (near Dolores Park). We welcome employees who want to work from this office; we offer additional benefits to those who do (see below), and relocation assistance to those who'd like to.

We're also hiring remotely across the US for most roles. We work hard to create a first-class, remote-friendly environment, with an additional benefit for remote employees, too (see below).

We regularly bring our team together for offsites & trips, about every 2 months, both for fun and for work. We cover all travel & lodging in these cases.

A condition of employment at Cardless is being fully vaccinated and boosted against COVID prior to beginning your employment. We’ll ask you to send us a copy of your vaccination card in advance of your first day.

Benefits & perks

For all employees, we offer:

💸 Highly competitive salaries, significant equity, and a 401(k) plan

🏥 Top-of-the-line healthcare (medical, vision, and dental), with 100% primary coverage and 75% dependent coverage for medical

🌴 Unlimited paid time off, with a minimum of 15 days off per year

👶 Parental leave for birthing and non-birthing parents

✈️ Amazing team trips & offsites (e.g. rock climbing in Utah, watching a Cavs game in a suite, and staying in an Italian villa in Carmel Valley)

For in-office employees:

Catered lunch at the office every day, plus plenty of snacks & drinks

$250/month commuter assistance for public transit or our parking garage

For remote employees:

$500 remote setup stipend to help you do your best work

Our Values

We believe that the best companies are the ones that successfully align their vision and values, that match their decision making processes, hiring criteria, and overall operating principles to the change they’re striving to make. We're willing to spend significant time and resources to be above average at the following things, because we believe that will lead to long term success.

- Be curious and be the solution. We work in a complex space. In order to be successful, we must think globally and collaborate cross-functionally. We ask thoughtful questions without judgment and propose comprehensive solutions that address the full picture. We are all owners at Cardless — mindful and empowered.

- Start with the customer. Our customers are our priority. Our care for them drives our actions. The first question we always ask is: how will this impact the customer? We make every decision, no matter how big or small, with the customer top of mind.

- Move fast and build things. We are a startup in a highly regulated space, so we must execute with both speed and precision. We achieve this through deliberate focus, methodical preparation, and disciplined execution. We build, learn, improve, and repeat.

- A place to do your best work. We are a team, and we achieve more together than apart. At Cardless, we want to see each other succeed: we take as much pride in each other’s work as our own. We celebrate and seek out diversity of experience, thought, and background in order to accelerate both individual and company growth. We're hungry, we're passionate, and we’re inspired to achieve great things together.

Compensation

This role has an annual starting salary range of $160,000 - $200,000 + equity + benefits (see above). Actual compensation is influenced by a wide array of factors including but not limited to skills, experience, and specific work location.

Average Compensation: $174,000

How Much Do Cardless Employees Make?

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