Job details

Sr. Engineering Manager, Backend

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 positions (three days/ week in-office).

About the role

As a Senior Engineering Manager in Broker Dealer, you'll help balance on-time delivery of new B/D features alongside system stability and scale, all while helping mentor and grow a team of talented engineers. Backend Systems is the core of the Betterment platform. On any given day, we need to securely move millions of dollars through the Betterment system. At the same time, every transaction must flow through a complicated series of risk checks to ensure strict regulatory compliance. Every ounce of efficiency and intelligence we pour into this system translates into more value for our customers. We’re looking for an Engineering leader to contribute to answering our most difficult backend scaling, software design, and optimization questions. While we don’t expect you to code on a daily basis, we do expect you to quickly familiarize yourself with the tech stack, codebase and specific business domains so that you can better support the team and its mission.

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 interview performance. The range listed is just one component of Betterment’s total compensation package for employees.

New York City: $210,000 - $235,000

We offer a competitive equity package, health, dental and vision benefits, and a 401(k) offering with employer match as well as flexible PTO policy. This job is eligible for variable compensation in the form of a discretionary 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

Lead the team that builds innovative trading, money-movement and record keeping technology that powers our investing products.
Collaborate with Product and Engineering leaders, our Operations team, Legal & Compliance to ensure we build the right things the right way every time.
Help with the technical vision and long-term strategy of the team.
Be an advocate for investing in the long term maintainability and reliability of the technology your team builds.
Actively participate in team and org technical discussions.
Develop deep domain and industry knowledge in order to be a more effective partner across all stakeholders, both internal and external.
Foster career development and align roadmap opportunities with the career growth interests of your direct reports.
Maintain a team culture that fosters accountability, values constructive feedback and celebrates wins.
Balance the need for speed with the importance of correctness and quality in everything your team undertakes.
Continuously improve how your team operates in order to drive better results for the business.

What we’re looking for

Experience building and scaling distributed and concurrent backend systems using Java or a similar programming language.
Technically proficient to dive into the codebase and unblock the team.
Experience managing, mentoring, and inspiring talented engineers, including managers and senior individual contributors.
Experience cultivating highly performant teams that execute with precision and speed while being mindful of the trade-offs required to ship without compromising quality.
A track record of fostering accountability and ownership within a team to take initiative and get things done.
A proven track record of closing knowledge gaps efficiently in order to be maximally productive and a trusted leader.
An effective collaborator capable of working with other engineering teams, product managers, subject matter experts, non-technical stakeholders and third party vendors to build and ship high quality software.
Ability to translate business strategy into Engineering initiatives that contribute to desired outcomes.
A leader capable of adjusting their leadership style to meet the needs of the team.

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
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!

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!

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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CPRA Language - CA Applicants ONLY

We collect and store personal information for the purposes of candidate tracking (for this role and future opportunities). The information you provide in the course of completing your application will be kept for up to 24 months. We use tools provided by third-party service providers but do not share candidate information for any purpose other than for recruiting. To access the data that is collected, request deletion or to make updates to your candidate profile, please email team.hire@betterment.com.

Betterment Glassdoor Company Review

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