Job details

Software Engineer, Payments (New York City or Remote)

Check is leading a revolution in the payroll industry. Payroll is the backbone of the US economy, and yet it has not undergone significant innovation in decades. We invented the embedded payroll space to change that (see: Check: Solving the $150 Billion Payroll Problem, Bank On It; Episode 438), both for the business owners who spend countless hours per week running payroll and for the millions of Americans who depend on their next paycheck. At Check, our mission is to empower the most innovative software platforms to create new payroll businesses, and enable those businesses to transform the way companies pay their employees.

Check’s culture is intensely caring: to each other as teammates, to our partners, and to the businesses and workers we serve. Our teams are made up of creative problem solvers and empathetic cross-functional collaborators who can simplify the complexities of payroll. We bring hustle and grit to our day-to-day, while building enduring solutions and relationships.

Engineering is the core of Check. We believe payroll can and should be easy-to-use financial software, but getting there requires serious and sustained engineering effort. For our efforts, there is the deep satisfaction that comes from delivering people's paychecks on time and accurately. We are excited to bring on a new software engineer who will play a leading role in our payments engineering team.

A large part of fulfilling Check’s mission of “making payroll software” is ensuring that every payment is made in a timely and accurate manner, for every payroll. Check is a payroll company, and at the same time, it is a payments company. The payments system at Check must be highly reliable and robust, handle large volumes of money in and out, and have a high degree of accuracy and auditability in tracking funds and associated liabilities using our internal ledger.

For this role, we are seeking an individual with strong, backend-oriented software engineering skills, a track record of building scalable and simple systems, an entrepreneurial mindset, and high personal integrity. We believe that someone with this combination will unlock new ideas, and solutions for our product, and gain the respect of our team.

In this role, you will:

Ship code that moves money between employers, employees, and tax agencies via ACH / Wire transfers, in a timely and accurate basis using our internal ledger
Distill the complexities of payment lifecycles into simple APIs for developers to use to holistic payroll systems
Build frontend and backend components that improve customer integrations
Influence the culture, values, and processes of a growing engineering team
Communicate ideas and specifications through detailed, precise writing
Work with our ops, design, sales, and legal functions
Commit on your first day, and deploy code continuously
Support developers at customer companies
Teach and learn from other engineers
Interview prospective candidates

Many backgrounds could fit this role, but ideal candidates will:

Have built and scaled production web applications
Have SQL and relational database experience
Have maintained or contributed to developer tools, SDKs, or open-source software
Have demonstrated product and design sensibilities
Have strong software engineering fundamentals

Nice to haves:

Built and scaled critical and time-sensitive systems with a high degree of required reliability
Experience working on systems with multiple third-party vendor integrations
You have worked at startups that have achieved market fit and are scaling up
Previous experience with non-ACH payment rails

We use:

Python (type-annotated) and Django for our API
React and TypeScript for our frontends
Postgres for our database
AWS for our cloud infrastructure
GitLab for CI/CD
JIRA and Confluence for project/information management

What we offer:

At Check, we value transparency and trust. It’s important to us that every employee and candidate feels confident that they’ll be treated (and compensated) fairly on our team. The engineering team specifically operates on a flat titling system, meaning everyone is either a Software Engineer or an Engineering Manager. We structure our titles this way to maximize equity, inclusion, and opportunity within our team, and to minimize seniority bias. We want all engineers, regardless of job level, to feel empowered to lead projects they’re passionate about and to collaborate with their fellow Checketeers as equals.

To that end, we will consider candidates with a variety of backgrounds and levels of expertise for this role, and we will determine the appropriate job level for each candidate based on their unique experience and qualifications. The expected annual salary for this role is between $160,000 and $252,000, depending on the job level.

In the US, Check offers company-sponsored medical, dental, vision, short-term/long-term disability, and basic life insurance coverage to all full-time employees, effective on their first day of work. We also provide stock options, flexible PTO and sick leave, 16 weeks of fully paid parental leave for all new parents flexible return-to-work, 9 annual holidays, a 401k retirement plan, and a $100 monthly stipend for home internet and mobile phone expenses. Benefits may vary outside the US.

Check is proud to be an Equal Opportunity employer. We do not discriminate based upon race, religion, color, national origin, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, gender expression, transgender status, sexual stereotypes, age, status as a protected veteran, status as an individual with a disability, or other applicable legally protected characteristics. We also consider qualified applicants with criminal histories, consistent with applicable federal, state and local law. Check is committed to providing reasonable accommodations for candidates with disabilities in our recruiting process. If you need any assistance or accommodations due to a disability, please let us know at hello@checkhq.com with “accommodations” in the subject line.