Betterment is a leading, technology-driven financial services company that offers investing, savings 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, to empower people to build wealth with confidence and ease. We’re headquartered in NYC and offer hybrid NY-based positions (four days/ week in-office, with no required office days during the summer and winter holidays).
About the RoleOn User Engagement, you will build within a product that guides customers through the most important life events in their financial journey. Whether it’s saving to buy a house or planning for retirement, hundreds of thousands of people rely on us to invest and save their money. If you are passionate about financial wellness and are driven to solve complex problems that make saving and investing simple, this role is for you.
As a staff engineer, you'll play an instrumental role in designing and implementing complex systems within the team's domain, guiding your team's full stack development practices and collaborating with other senior engineering leaders to advance Betterment's technology and create high performance, reliability and exceptional developer experience.
If you're passionate about delightful customer experiences, building scalable, high-performance web applications and are eager to work in a collaborative, forward-thinking environment, we'd love to have you on our team.
This role is based out of our NYC office. Below we've reflected the base salary range for this position. Actual salaries may vary depending on factors including but not limited to location, experience, and performance. The range listed is just one component of Betterment’s total compensation package for employees.
- New York City: $200,000 - $238,000
This job may also be eligible for variable compensation in the form of a company incentive bonus.
A Day in the Life:- Shape the technical direction for User Engagement, helping define the systems, patterns, and engineering practices behind customer-facing experiences.
- Partner with engineers, product managers, designers, and other stakeholders to turn product goals into pragmatic technical plans and phased delivery.
- Design and build high-quality software across the stack, with a high bar for performance, reliability, observability, and maintainability.
- Guide complex projects from discovery through release, aligning teammates, clarifying tradeoffs, and helping the team make sound technical decisions.
- Create leverage for the team by reducing technical friction, improving developer workflows, and making thoughtful investments in architecture and code health.
- Mentor engineers across levels through feedback, pairing, design reviews, and day-to-day technical leadership.
- Collaborate with other senior/Staff engineers to evaluate new patterns and technologies, and adopt them thoughtfully when they improve the customer or developer experience.
- Raise the bar for how we work by sharing knowledge, strengthening engineering practices, and contributing to an inclusive, high-trust engineering culture.
- Proven experience scoping, leading, and delivering complex technical projects from discovery through release.
- Strong full stack engineering experience, including building customer-facing web applications and the systems that support them.
- Strong experience in at least one server-side language. We use Ruby on Rails, so experience with Ruby is a plus, but strong fundamentals in languages such as Java, Python, or C# are valuable.
- Proficiency building frontend applications using React or a similar framework. Experience with GraphQL is a plus.
- Proficiency with relational databases, including schema design and writing detailed SQL queries.
- Strong technical judgment, including the ability to evaluate tradeoffs and make pragmatic decisions without compromising quality.
- Experience building consensus, influencing technical direction, and collaborating effectively with technical and non-technical stakeholders.
- A track record of mentoring engineers through feedback, pairing, design reviews, and day-to-day technical leadership.
- A high bar for software quality, including testing, observability, reliability, and maintainability.
We change lives
Be a part of a community of innovators working to transform financial outcomes for real people. Your work will make an impact, always laddering up to our mission; to empower people to build wealth with confidence and ease.
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 simplify financial services
We’re financial services pioneers, always finding new ways to improve, optimize, and enhance. Constant improvement is in our DNA.
Our Commitment to Your Total Well-being:
- We offer a competitive suite of benefits, including medical, dental, and vision coverage; life and AD&D insurance; short- and long-term disability; infertility support and WPATH-aligned transgender health benefits; an Employee Assistance Program (EAP); transit benefits and FSA and HSA options
- Ownership: Equity for all employees, including new hire and refresher grants.
- Time: Flexible paid time off, paid parental leave, and a fully paid four-week sabbatical in your sixth year.
- Growth: Company-paid professional coaching for all employees.
- Wealth: Day-one 401(k) match plus matching on qualified student loan payments.
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.
Skills Required
- Proven experience scoping, leading, and delivering complex technical projects from discovery through release
- Strong full-stack engineering experience building customer-facing web applications
- Experience with at least one server-side language (Ruby on Rails experience is a plus; Java, Python, or C# valued)
- Proficiency building frontend applications using React or a similar framework
- Experience with GraphQL
- Proficiency with relational database schema design and writing detailed SQL queries
- Track record of mentoring engineers and providing technical leadership (feedback, pairing, design reviews)
- Strong technical judgment and ability to evaluate tradeoffs and make pragmatic decisions without compromising quality
- High bar for software quality, including testing, observability, reliability, and maintainability
- Ability to work from Betterment's NYC office (hybrid: four days/week in-office)
Betterment Compensation & Benefits Highlights
The following summarizes recurring compensation and benefits themes identified from responses generated by popular LLMs to common candidate questions about Betterment and has not been reviewed or approved by Betterment.
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Retirement Support — Day-one 401(k) matching and student-loan matching are highlighted, with employees paying zero management fees on company accounts. Feedback suggests these financial-wellness features are unusually robust for a mid-size fintech.
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Leave & Time Off Breadth — Flexible PTO and a four-week sabbatical at year six are positioned as meaningful time-away benefits. Feedback suggests these provisions contribute to positive work-life balance perceptions.
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Equity Value & Accessibility — Equity grants for all employees (new-hire, performance, and refreshers) are emphasized as part of total compensation. Feedback suggests ownership opportunities add meaningful value alongside salary.
Betterment Insights
What We Do
Betterment is the largest independent digital investment advisor in the U.S., offering investing and retirement solutions alongside their everyday services for spending and saving. Using cutting-edge technology, expert advice, automated money management tools, and tax-smart strategies, they empower hundreds of thousands of customers to manage their money—for today, tomorrow, and someday.
Why Work With Us
At Betterment, we revolutionize the way people manage their money through innovative technology and personalized guidance. With a culture of empowerment, endless growth opportunities, and focus on a well-balanced life, working at Betterment means being part of our mission of making people’s lives better.
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