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Software Engineer - Backend

Betterment

Betterment

Software Engineering
New York, NY, USA
Posted 6+ months ago

About Betterment

Betterment is a leading, technology-driven financial services company that offers investing 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: making people’s lives better. We’re headquartered in NYC, and offer hybrid NY-based (three days/ week in-office) and select, non-NY-based remote positions.

About the role

As markets move and Betterment users manage their financial goals, we securely move millions of dollars into, out of, and around the Betterment system. The Trading team is responsible for determining and executing trades that best suit the needs of each client’s transactions. We do this with advanced linear optimization algorithms, complex transactional guarantees across systems, and a whole lot of domain discovery.

We’re looking for engineers to help us answer some of our most difficult backend scaling, software design, and optimization questions. As an engineer on the Trading team, you'll help balance on-time delivery of new platform features alongside system stability, regulatory compliance, and scale, by partnering with a team of amazing engineers to achieve the best outcomes.

This role is based out of our NYC office. Below we've reflected the base salary range we would offer 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 Betterment’s total compensation package for employees.

  • New York City: $135,000 - $150,000

We offer a competitive equity package, health, dental and vision benefits, life and AD&D, short-term and long-term disability insurance, EAP, commuter and parking benefits FSA/HSA, and 401(k) with employer match as well as a flexible PTO policy. This job may also be eligible for variable compensation in the form of a company incentive bonus. For jobs based out of our NYC HQ, we require in office attendance Tuesday through Thursday, weekly.

A day in the life

  • Build innovative trading and money-movement technology that empowers people to make the most of their money.
  • Solve challenging problems by working together with industry experts. Take your ideas to the next level right away. We experiment, learn, iterate, and repeat.
  • Collaborate with purpose. You’ll work in small groups with other talented thinkers and figure out how to make Betterment’s software even better.
  • Gain trust through transparency. We believe in taking the guesswork out of investing. That means a dependable experience for our customers — you’ll build the tools to make it possible.
  • Create efficiency. Our software helps customers save time and money. We maintain it through clean code, pragmatic programming, and lean engineering.
  • Work with stakeholders beyond the Trading team who are invested in building quality solutions. Our team is made up of engineers, but we believe everyone at Betterment is a problem solver with their own tools. We’re a group of talented professionals who pride ourselves on what we do. We’re smart, innovative, energetic, and lots of fun.

What we’re looking for

  • 3+ years of professional expertise in object oriented programming. Our team uses Java, but experience in other OOP languages suffices.
  • A strong command of fundamental algorithms and data structures.
  • A curious mindset that enjoys seeking and sharing new learnings with your team.
  • An understanding of how to make the tradeoffs required to deliver value without compromising quality.
  • A belief that investments in developing robust tests pays for itself several times over
  • Appreciation for agility and pragmatism in software development.
  • An effective collaborator capable of working with other engineering teams, product managers, subject matter experts, and non-technical stakeholders to build and ship high quality software.
  • Experience defining concrete steps that take a design to fruition.

What being at Betterment means for you

We change lives

Join a community of innovators working to transform financial outcomes for real people. Your work will make an impact, always laddering up to our mission: making people's lives better.

We set audacious goals

We set them for the company, our customers, and ourselves—and we won’t stop until we reach them. We don’t just show up; we give our all, then celebrate our wins.

We value all perspectives

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

We invest in you with:

  • A competitive suite of benefits, including: medical, dental, and vision insurance; life and AD&D insurance; STD and LTD benefits, including infertility support and World Professional Association for Transgender Health approved benefits; and generous parental leave.
  • Flexible paid time off (and encouragement to use it!)
  • Meaningful opportunity for community building through our 7 Employee Resource Groups
  • Empowerment to own and lead change and affect the business
  • Dedicated professional development opportunities
  • Complimentary financial advice from our team of CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNERS™️
  • Lunch from our in-house chef three days a week at our NYC headquarters

What happens next

We’ll take a few weeks to review all applications. If we’d like to spend more time with you, we’ll reach out to arrange next steps, which will include 3-4 sets of meetings with your future colleagues.

In the interview process, we’ll 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, we’re 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!

Please note that 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.

Come join us!

We’re 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.

E-Verify Statement

Betterment participates in E-Verify. We will provide the Social Security Administration, and if necessary, the Department of Homeland Security, with information from each new employee’s Form I-9 to confirm work authorization. Please note that we do not use this information to pre-screen job applicants.
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