Backend Systems is the core of the Betterment platform. On a busy day, we need to securely move millions of dollars through the Betterment system. At the same time, every transaction must flow through a complicated series of risk checks to ensure strict regulatory compliance. Every ounce of efficiency and intelligence we pour into this system translates into more value for our customers. We’re looking for engineers to help us answer some of our most difficult backend scaling, software design, and optimization questions. 

At Betterment you will get to:

• Build innovative trading and money-movement technology that empowers people to make the most of their money, so they can live better
• Solve “impossible” problems. Take your ideas to the next level right away. We experiment, iterate, learn, and repeat.
• Collaborate, with purpose. You’ll work in small groups with other talented thinkers and figure out how to make Betterment’s revolutionary software even better.
• Gain trust through transparency. We believe in taking the guesswork out of investing. That means a consistent experience for our customers — you’ll build the tools to make it possible.
• Create efficiency. Our software helps customers save time and money. We maintain it through clean code, pragmatic programming, and lean engineering.
• Work with people who care. Half of our team is made up of engineers but we believe everyone at Betterment is an engineer with their own tools. We’re a group of talented professionals who pride ourselves on what we do. We’re smart, innovative, energetic, and lots of fun.

 You will answer questions like:

• How can we increase the efficiency of our systems by 10x while scaling our daily transactions by 10x over the same period?
• How can we use the history of our customer transactions to predict and prevent future fraud attempts?
• What code patterns and testing approaches do we need to guarantee that we never, ever fail in an unexpected or undefined way?
• How do we evolve the architecture and the orchestration and inspection of all of our running processes to increase transparency?
• How do we go all-in on cloud infrastructure while increasing data security and privacy for our customers?

You will be effective if you have:

• 4+ years of professional expertise in at least one object oriented language, such as Java, C#, C++, Ruby, or Python. You know the list. We build our apps in Java.
• Have a strong command of fundamental algorithms and data structures
• Have a passion for software engineering, and for creating what doesn’t exist
• Know how to make the tradeoffs required to ship without compromising quality
• Know that investing in developing solid tests pays for itself several times over
• Appreciate agility and pragmatism in software development
• Thrive in a startup environment

Technologies you will use:

Java, Spring, Hibernate, MySQL/PostgreSQL, Amazon Web Services, Linux

Backend Engineering spends most of its time with the tools above, but we cast a much wider net in other parts of the engineering team. We strive to always choose the best tool for the job. When building systems that connect to financial markets and institutions, the core toolset is probably JVM-based. That said, we use plenty of Python and Ruby within the core as well, and you’ll be working alongside teams that live-and-breathe Javascript, R, Ruby, Rails, Scala, and Spring MVC.

About Betterment

Betterment is the largest independent online financial advisor with more than $20 billion in assets under management. The service is designed to help increase customers’ long-term returns and lower taxes for retirement planning, building wealth, and other financial goals. Betterment takes advanced investment strategies and uses technology to deliver them to more than 480,000 customers across its three business lines: direct-to-consumer, Betterment for Advisors, and Betterment for Business. Learn more.

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.