We’re looking for an experienced backend engineer to support a critical product team by building, maintaining, and optimizing the backend infrastructure that powers innovative financial features. This team is focused on helping registered users build and manage their financial portfolios with confidence. This role is essential in enabling frontend engineers to focus on delivering user experiences by developing scalable backend systems that integrate multiple internal and third-party data sources. Success in this role means deeply understanding frontend and product goals, proactively designing backend solutions, and delivering reliable, high-performance services that elevate the overall user experience. You’ll work independently to drive technical execution, while collaborating closely with cross-pod backend engineers, product managers, engineering leadership, and third-party integration partners to ensure systems are robust, efficient, and well-aligned with our broader platform strategy.

As a Senior Software Engineer, you will be responsible for building complex services, endpoints, and data pipelines that power our financial product initiatives. You’ll bring a strong sense of ownership—caring deeply about product outcomes and pushing projects across the finish line, regardless of who does the work. You’ll proactively communicate status updates, risks, and tradeoffs to the team and leadership, keeping everyone aligned and focused. You will act as the key point of contact for our third-party partners articulating all aspects of projects such as scope, current needs, potential changes, and prevailing issues. While you thrive working independently, you have natural collaboration skills and will work to build relationships with cross-pod team members across the organization. In every phase of the development cycle, you’ll demonstrate accountability and attention to detail, prioritizing observability, security, and reliability. You’ll react swiftly to post-release issues and strike the right balance between delivering for today and planning for tomorrow—favoring thoughtful MVPs that lay the groundwork for iteration, rather than overengineering from the outset.

Where you can make an impact: 

• Provide accurate and performant data retrieval from multiple sources to enable frontend engineers to build responsive, data-driven user experiences.

• Lead the development, maintenance, observability and scaling of the team’s backend infrastructure to ensure a stable, extensible, and high-performing data foundation.

• Implement best practices for service reliability, observability, and security to ensure system resilience and maintainability.

• Communicate with product, engineering, and third-party integration partners to align technical execution with business goals and ensure well-informed, organized projects. 

• Report project scope, technical risks, and timelines to engineering leadership to enable proactive resource planning and prioritization.

• Partner with Product Management to provide technical insights into product decisions to ensure feasibility and alignment with backend capabilities.

• Be a driver of technical excellence, actively participating in our effort to continuously improve our craft.

• Collaborate with cross-pod backend engineers in standardizing backend patterns and tools to enhance maintainability and efficiency of services.

• Be an engaged product owner, offering your thoughts and ideas regarding our financial products’ development.

Your experience:

We recognize not everyone will meet all of the criteria. If you meet most of the criteria below and you’re excited about the opportunity and willing to learn, we’d love to hear from you.

• Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science or related field

• Demonstrated success working in backend infrastructure

• Experience managing and organizing several ongoing projects at once

• 5+ years of experience building scalable backend systems and APIs

• Experience with microservices architecture, RESTful APIs, and GraphQL

• Advanced knowledge in Python and Go

• Master’s Degree in Computer Science

• Experience communicating with third party vendors

• Strong proficiency in monitoring and observability tools

• Leadership of large-scale software projects involving multiple engineers and a large stakeholder group

• Experience in consumer credit, financial institutions and protocols, personal finance, or investment products

Where:

• This role will be remote (based in the U.S.).

• We believe great work can be done anywhere. No matter where you are based, NerdWallet offers benefits and perks to support the physical, financial, and emotional well being of you and your family.

What we offer:

Work Hard, Stay Balanced (Life’s a series of balancing acts, eh?)

• Industry-leading medical, dental, and vision health care plans for employees and their dependents

• Rejuvenation Policy – Vacation Time Off + 11 holidays + 4 Mental Health Days Off

• New Parent Leave for employees with a newborn child or a child placed with them for adoption or foster care

• Mental health support

• Paid sabbatical for Nerds to recharge, gain knowledge and pursue their interests

• Health and Dependent Care FSA and HSA Plan with monthly NerdWallet contribution

• Monthly Wellness Stipend, Cell Phone Stipend, and Wifi Stipend 

• Work from home equipment stipend and co-working space subsidy

Have Some Fun! (Nerds are fun, too)

• Nerd-led group initiatives – Employee Resource Groups for Parents, Diversity, and Inclusion, Women, LGBTQIA, and other communities

• Hackathons and team events across all teams and departments

• Company-wide events like NerdLove (employee appreciation) and our annual Charity Auction 

• Our Nerds love to make an impact by paying it forward – Take 8 hours of volunteer time off per quarter and donate to your favorite causes with a company match

Plan for your future (And when you retire on your island, remember the little people)

• 401K with company match

• Be the first to test and benefit from our new financial products and tools

• Financial wellness, guidance, and unlimited access to a Certified Financial Planner (CFP) through Northstar

• Disability and Life Insurance with employer-paid premiums

If you are based in California, we encourage you to read this important information for California residents linked here.

NerdWallet is committed to pursuing and hiring a diverse workforce and is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We prohibit discrimination and harassment on the basis of any characteristic protected by applicable federal, state, or local law, so all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment.  

NerdWallet will consider qualified applicants with a criminal history pursuant to the California Fair Chance Act and the San Francisco Fair Chance Act, which requires this notice, as well as the Los Angeles Fair Chance Act, which requires this notice.

NerdWallet participates in the Department of Homeland Security U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services E-Verify program for all US locations. For more information, please see:

• E-Verify Participation Poster (English+Spanish/Español)

• Right to Work Poster (English) / (Spanish/Español) 

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