Staff Engineer, User Trust

About Betterment

Betterment is a leading technology-driven financial services company that offers investing savings and retirement solutions for retail investors and investment advisors as well as financial wellness solutions including a 401(k) for small and medium-sized businesses. Our team is passionate about our mission to empower people to build wealth with confidence and ease. Were headquartered in NYC and offer hybrid NY-based positions (four days/ week in-office with no required office days during the summer and winter holidays).

About the Role

On User Trust youll build the systems and experiences that help users partners and regulators trust Betterments platform. Youll work on critical capabilities spanning user privacy and compliance account access KYC risk scoring login and account recovery and fraud prevention.

This role sits at the intersection of security legal & compliance risk and product engineering to deliver scalable reliable solutions that protect customers reduce fraud and support Betterments regulatory obligations.

As a staff engineer youll play an instrumental role in designing and implementing complex systems within the teams domain guiding your teams full stack development practices and collaborating with other senior engineering leaders to advance Betterments technology and create high performance reliability and exceptional developer experience.

This role is based out of our NYC office. Below weve reflected the base salary range for this position. Actual salaries may vary depending on factors including but not limited to location experience and performance. The range listed is just one component of Betterments total compensation package for employees.

• New York City: $200000 - $238000

This job may also be eligible for variable compensation in the form of a company incentive bonus.

What Were Looking For

• Experience designing building and operating systems for fraud detection prevention or risk mitigation in high-trust environments.
• Familiarity with building customer-facing and internal tools that require strong reliability auditability and thoughtful handling of risk.
• Exposure to domains involving identity access privacy compliance financial workflows or other trust-critical user experiences.
• Track record of balancing user experience business goals and control frameworks when building scalable fullstack systems.
• Have proven and recent experience scoping building and leading technical projects (and the teams building them) from discovery through release
• Have experience in at least one server-side language - Ruby Java C# C Python. (we use Ruby on Rails)
• Have experience building interactive web applications using modern Javascript frameworks (we use React)
• Have a strong understanding of appropriate technical design architecture and other complexity in building web applications
• Have experience gathering inputs building consensus and making technical decisions in an inclusive manner
• Have experience communicating effectively with technical and non-technical colleagues across different roles teams and lines of business
• Have a commitment to upskilling teammates through feedback pairing and mentorship
• Have a passion for software engineering and for creating what doesnt exist
• Know how to make the tradeoffs required to ship without compromising quality
• Realize that automated tests are a worthwhile investment
• Appreciate agility and pragmatism in software development
• Thrive in a startup environment

Join a team built on these core values

We change lives

Be a part of a community of innovators working to transform financial outcomes for real people. Your work will make an impact always laddering up to our mission; to empower people to build wealth with confidence and ease.

We set audacious goals

We set them for the company our customers and ourselves and we wont stop until we reach them. We dont just show up; we give our all then celebrate our wins.

We value all perspectives

When we collaborate were at our best. We believe diverse perspectives lead to better outcomes and strive to uphold our supportive and inclusive community.

We simplify financial services

Were financial services pioneers always finding new ways to improve optimize and enhance. Constant improvement is in our DNA.

Our Commitment to Your Total Well-being:

• We offer a competitive suite of benefits including medical dental and vision coverage; life and AD&D insurance; short- and long-term disability; infertility support and WPATH-aligned transgender health benefits; an Employee Assistance Program (EAP); transit benefits and FSA and HSA options
• Ownership: Equity for all employees including new hire and refresher grants.
• Time: Flexible paid time off paid parental leave and a fully paid four-week sabbatical in your sixth year.
• Growth: Company-paid professional coaching for all employees.
• Wealth: Day-one 401(k) match plus matching on qualified student loan payments.

What happens next

Well take a few weeks to review all applications. If wed like to spend more time with you well reach out to arrange next steps which will include 3-4 sets of meetings with your future colleagues.

In the interview process well look to learn more about your skills experiences capabilities and motivators. Many of our questions will be aimed at understanding how you might operate here at Betterment. Depending on the role we may ask you to complete a case study exercise or technical assessments as we want to collect a robust set of data points to better inform our decisions.

On average it takes us around 3-5 weeks to make a hiring decision depending on your availability and sense of urgency. As a best practice we aim to interview at least 2-3 final round candidates before making a hiring decision. Please note that as we usually receive an overwhelming number of applications for open positions were unable to offer individual feedback during the interview process.

We recognize that interviewing for a new role is a big deal. We appreciate you considering Betterment as the next step in your career and our Recruiting Team is here to support and advocate for you through the interview process!

Betterment is dedicated to providing accommodations to candidates upon request. If you need accommodations at any point throughout the interview process please reach out to your recruiter.

Please note that in any materials you submit you may redact or remove age-identifying information such as age date of birth or dates of school attendance or graduation. You will not be penalized for redacting or removing this information.

Come join us!

Were an equal opportunity employer and comply with all applicable federal state and local fair employment practices laws. We strictly prohibit and do not tolerate discrimination against employees applicants or any other covered persons because of race color religion creed national origin or ancestry ethnicity sex gender (including gender nonconformity and status as a transgender or transsexual individual) sexual orientation marital status age physical or mental disability citizenship past current or prospective service in the uniformed services predisposing genetic characteristic domestic violence victim status arrest records or any other characteristic protected under applicable federal state or local law.