Homeward takes the “what ifs” out of homebuying by creating financial products that give buyers and sellers certainty and convenience. We’re a fast-paced, remote-first real estate startup that partners with real estate agents to offer innovative products and services, helping clients buy with cash, sell with certainty, and time their move, regardless of the market.
Founder and CEO Tim Heyl, owner of one of the fastest-growing agent teams in the country, started Homeward in 2018 to fix the antiquated and broken real estate process. Today, we offer bundled cash offers, mortgage, and title services in 13 states, enabling buyers and sellers to move with certainty and convenience.
We’re a fully remote company with a diverse team spread across several countries - Grounded in three core values: The Golden Rule, One Team One Dream, and Calm Focus. Hear from our employees about what our values mean to them.
About The Opportunity
We're seeking a Senior Backend Engineer to help us build a simpler, more customer-centric home buying and selling experience in partnership with real estate agents.
In addition to strong backend fundamentals, the ideal candidate will bring hands-on experience deploying AI and automation solutions – from embedding intelligent features into production systems to designing robust, human-in-the-loop workflows that leverage modern AI tools.
As a fast-moving startup, we're constantly balancing technical debt and good design. We value engineers who can make pragmatic tradeoffs, ship quickly, and iterate toward great solutions rather than waiting for perfection.
Please note, this role is not eligible for visa sponsorship.
In This Role, You Will:
- Design, develop, debug, and modify backend components in an agile environment
- Write automated unit and integration tests to support our CI/CD pipelines
- Participate in code reviews to ensure overall code quality and flexibility
- Prototype creative solutions quickly by developing MVPs and working with peers to shape our technical strategy
- Integrate AI capabilities into new or existing applications, e.g.:
- Deploy RAG-based solutions for internal knowledge sharing
- Use commercially available models via APIs to automate operational workflows
- Build pipelines that combine LLM-based decisions with human review or escalation paths
- Design data and orchestration layers to support the above
- Collaborate effectively with distributed, cross-functional teams (engineering, product, operations, etc.)
- Troubleshoot and resolve business or technical issues – following through on details and driving issues to closure
- Continuously improve our software development processes and team practices
- Participate in agile planning and user story creation
What You’ll Bring:
- 7+ years of non-internship, professional backend development experience
- Strong problem-solving and troubleshooting skills
- Deep understanding of web development and backend best practices
- Strong grasp of the Software Development Lifecycle and agile methodologies
- Proficiency with Python and one or more frameworks like Django, Flask, or FastAPI
- Expertise with common backend technologies and patterns (REST APIs, async task management, data modeling, etc.)
- Hands-on experience integrating AI and automation tools into production systems, as described in the responsibilities above
- Ability to rapidly prototype and adjust in response to customer feedback
- Working knowledge of version control and CI/CD tools
How You Work:
- "Startup energy" – scrappy, flexible, and motivated to ship impactful features
- A "build, test, learn" mindset with a bias toward quick, calculated action and a focus on measurable business outcomes
- Strong product sense, able to translate ambiguous goals into iterative technical milestones
- Strong organizational skills and discipline in both following and appropriately challenging conventions
- Comfort balancing speed vs. design, knowing when to ship quickly and when to refactor
- A high bar when it comes to quality – even if we can't always reach it, you know what "great" looks like
Nice To Have:
- Experience with workflow automation systems (e.g., Airflow, Temporal)
- Familiarity with low- and no-code solutions such as n8n or Zapier
- Experience designing data and orchestration layers for AI-driven workflows
- Hands-on experience with the infrastructure required to deploy AI-driven workflows, e.g. orchestration tools such as LangChain/LangGraph or LlamaIndex, or vector DBs such as Pinecone, Weaviate, or pgvector
Perks & Benefits:
- Compensation: 150K Base Salary + Annual Bonus
- Remote-first environment (our headquarters are in Austin, TX)
- Exciting stock option grant for every full-time employee
- 401(k) employer contribution match
- Health and wellness benefits, including medical, dental, vision, and life insurance
- Twenty days of vacation, five sick days, twelve company holidays, and two floating holidays each year
- Generous paid parental leave of up to 14 weeks
See more about how Homeward takes care of our team by providing a generous package of benefits here.
THE GOLDEN RULE. It’s simple: Treat others the way we want to be treated. Whether we’re dealing with colleagues or customers, we don’t prioritize money or growth over people, and we practice empathy at every opportunity.
CALM FOCUS. We work in tech and build solutions for real estate. Both are fast-paced and stressful industries. But by focusing on the larger objective rather than rushing from one task to the next, we can create solutions our customers love.
ONE TEAM, ONE DREAM. Big problems require big solutions. We look at our customers’ experiences holistically and recognize that solving them requires collaboration across teams and our three affiliate companies — Homeward, Homeward Mortgage and Homeward Title.
Top Skills
What We Do
Buying a home should be an exciting milestone. But all too often, it’s stressful, especially when you’re buying and selling at the same time. So we’re redesigning the home-buying experience. We’re a fast-paced real estate startup that empowers agents to help homebuyers craft their best offer – so they can buy before they sell, get better terms with a cash offer, and close on time.
Founder and CEO Tim Heyl, a 10-year industry veteran and owner of one of the fastest-growing agent teams in the country, started Homeward in 2018. In fact, he bought our first customer’s home with his life savings. His idea has evolved into our Homeward Offer. It’s more than an offer; it’s the power to buy a new home on your terms. It’s the convenience that keeps you from moving twice. And it’s the savings that come from having everything you need in one place.
We’ve raised more than $160MM in equity capital from top-tier venture investors, including Norwest, Blackstone Alternative Asset Management, Adams Street, Javelin, and LiveOak. Our leadership team includes real estate, mortgage, and technology experts.
Why Work With Us
There is great satisfaction in making homebuying, one of life’s major milestones, a more enjoyable experience. We do that through cross-functional collaboration, combining the depth and breadth of our expertise. We focus on what matters, saying no to the rest. And we live by the golden rule — for our clients, our agent partners and each other.
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