Software Engineer, Backend

About Atticus

At any given time, 16 million Americans are experiencing a crisis that requires urgent help from our legal system or government. The right assistance could transform their lives. But today, most never get it. 

Atticus makes it easy for any sick or injured person in crisis to get the life-changing aid they deserve. In just three years, we’ve become the leading platform connecting people with disabilities to government benefits. We also help victims of accidents, misconduct, and violence get compensation from insurance. So far, we’ve gotten thousands of people access to over $2B in life-changing aid, and we’re just getting started.

We've helped more than 20,000 people in need (see our 6,000+ five-star reviews) and raised more than $50 million from top VC firms like Forerunner, GV (Google Ventures), and True Ventures. (We just closed our Series B round in May 2023, so we're well-funded for the foreseeable future.) We're small but moving fast — our team grew from 52 to 91 last year and we expect to grow again in 2024.

The Job

Atticus works in an industry dominated by outdated technology that is ripe for fresh thinking: our core competitors rely on massive call centers to screen clients, antiquated CRMs to track and manage cases, and paper checks to get paid (provided they’re sent to the right address). 

Conversely, as a VC-backed tech company our product & engineering department powers everything we do: from creating an engaging online experience for people in crisis to providing tools for our network lawyers as they serve our clients, Atticus relies on technology to fulfill our mission.

We’re looking for Software Engineers to join our team. You’ll work on the back-end, and will partner with every department at Atticus as we continue to grow our platform in an effort to help people in need find trusted legal support.  

What You'll Do:

• Design, build, and operate Atticus’ APIs with a focus on performance, modularity, extensibility, and reliability.
• Work with product and software architects to plan and deliver features, fixes, and performance enhancements
• Leverage your peers as multipliers for your skills to create excellent products and services.

The role is a rare opportunity to join a fast-growing Series A startup that doubles as a B-corp social enterprise. Every project you take on will help clients in need get the help they deserve, and you’ll shape our company culture as we scale. We’re looking for engineers who are excited about our mission and the challenges it entails.

Who You Are:

• You write idiomatic JavaScript/Node.js; Golang, Java, Python, Scala, or Ruby is helpful. 
• You use a modern version-control system for your source code repository (Git, Mercurial, GitHub, BitBucket).
• You lint all your code or know you should.
• You know what parts of your code require tests and you write those tests.
• You use objective judgement in leveraging the right frameworks and technologies.
• You are versed in cloud computing systems (GCP, AWS, etc.) and SAAS concepts.
• You build modern, resilient and operationally sane backend systems exemplifying industry standards (HTTP REST, GraphQL, Stream processing, Big Data).
• You leverage continuous integration systems to their full extent (CircleCI, Bamboo, Jenkins, TravisCI).
• You plan for, build, evolve and scrutinize monitoring and alerting for your production systems.
• You are willing and able to deploy, troubleshoot, and maintain your systems in production and staging environments.

Extra Credit:

• Experience with Google Cloud Platform, Kubernetes, Docker, CircleCI, Git, Golang, Java
• Experience with GraphQL, GraphQL Federation, REST APIs and supporting network protocols
• Experience with a distributed SQL platform like CockroachDB or Google Spanner
• Experience with Hadoop, MapReduce, or other “Big Data” systems

We are strongly committed to building a diverse team. If you’re from a background that’s underrepresented in tech, we’d love to meet you!

Salary & Benefits

This is a rare opportunity to join a startup that has strong traction (substantial funding, well-respected backers, tremendous growth, and many happy customers) but is still small enough that you can have a huge impact and play a role in shaping our culture.

We’re a certified B Corporation tackling a critical social problem. Our mission to help people in need drives everything we do, and your work here will touch many lives.

We offer competitive pay — including equity — and generous benefits:

• Medical and dental insurance with 100% of employee premiums covered
• 15 vacation days & ~19 paid holidays each year (including two weeks at end-of-year)
• Free memberships to ClassPass and OneMedical
• $1,000 reimbursable stipend for education and training outside of work
• Student loan repayment assistance, 401(k), and optional HSA
• Free snacks, drinks, weekly lunches, and regular team dinners/events/retreats
• Humble, thoughtful, smart, fun colleagues

We anticipate the base salary band for this role will be between $115,000 to $180,000 in addition to equity and benefits. The salary at offer will be determined by a number of factors such as candidate's experience, knowledge, skills and abilities, as well as internal equity among our team

Location & Covid

Today, about half our team are in Los Angeles or Phoenix (where we have offices) and half are fully remote and spread across the U.S. There are two options for this job:

1. Live in Los Angeles, work a few days a week (or more) out of our beautiful office in the Arts District.
2. Live wherever, work remotely, and travel to LA (on the company dime) as needed to be with your colleagues —somewhere between monthly and quarterly.

In short: You can do this job well remotely, and we’re committed to empowering everyone with flexibility. But we care a lot about building a great culture and we think some interactions need to happen in person, so we put a lot of thought into retreats, offsites, and other ways to gather. 

As for Covid: When the pandemic started, we immediately shifted to fully remote to protect our team and shuttered our office. Today, everyone on the team is vaccinated, and many come in often (though we don’t require it). Going forward, you can expect that vaccinations will be required for all employees (unless medically unable) and that if a variant emerges that makes in-person work unsafe for vaccinated people, we’ll close our office, cease any travel, and do whatever it takes to protect and support our team.