Software Engineer: Backend

For most people, health insurance is something that happens to them: a plan chosen by someone else, with little room to fit their life. Thatch is changing that. We help companies give every employee a real healthcare budget instead of a one-size-fits-all plan, so people can choose the coverage and care that works for them, and employers get predictable costs they can control.

It’s a simple idea, but making it real means solving hard problems across healthcare, payments, and technology, and we’re just getting started. We look for people who like solving complex problems, use good judgment, and are comfortable working through ambiguity. People here care deeply about our customers, take real responsibility for what gets built, and are driven by doing work that matters.

• Design, build, and evolve backend systems that support enrollments, payments, payroll, and benefits management.
• Architect and maintain robust data models and fund flows that handle large volumes of financial transactions.
• Build integrations with payroll providers, banks, insurance carriers, and other external partners.
• Improve operational rigor through automation, tooling, monitoring, and observability.
• Partner closely with product, operations, and other engineers to solve complex business problems.
• Take ownership of production systems, including reliability, debugging, and long-term maintainability. 

• Experience building and maintaining backend systems in a production environment.
• A track record of shipping systems with complex business and operational implications.
• Strong ability to reason about data models, workflows, and edge cases.
• Comfort operating in ambiguous problem spaces with cross-functional tradeoffs.
• Experience mentoring other engineers or setting technical direction.

We hire engineers across multiple levels and care most about the scope you’ve owned, the impact you’ve had, and how you make decisions.

• Ruby on Rails for backend systems.
• React and TailwindCSS for the frontend.
• Small amounts of Python and backend JavaScript where appropriate. 

Prior Ruby experience is helpful but not required. We value engineers who can learn quickly and think clearly about systems.

• Work in healthcare, finance, or other complex or regulated domains.
• Experience with HR, payroll, payments, or partner-facing systems.
• Ownership of systems with real operational or financial impact.

• We move quickly and bias toward action.
• We ship early, learn from real usage, and iterate.
• We operate with trust, ownership, and high empathy.
• We value clarity over ceremony and quality over shortcuts.

We aim to keep the process thoughtful, rigorous, and efficient. Most candidates complete it within three weeks. You can expect:

• An initial conversation with a recruiter.
• A collaborative pair programming session.
• A systems design interview and a separate conversation with one of our engineers about how we work together.
• A final conversation with engineering and company leadership.