Staff Engineer

About Thera

AI-Native Finance OS

Tech description:

BE:
- Java SpringBoot
- DynamoDB
- Microservice architecture

FE:
- Typescript
- React
- NextJS
- Tailwind CSS

Job description:

🚀 **Staff Engineer, Thera (NYC, in-person)**

Thera is building the financial OS for modern SMBs. Payroll, payments, treasury, spend, accounting, and docs in one system that actually works end-to-end.

We're looking for a hands-on Staff Engineer to own the technical foundation in our highest-leverage areas and help us scale from "great product" to category-defining company.

This is not a sit-back-and-manage role. You'll be in the code, in the architecture, and in the room making high-stakes decisions daily.

📍 NYC, 5 days/week

**Why this role exists**

We have:

- a product customers use

- real workflows running through it

- increasing complexity across payments, accounting, and ops

We need someone who can turn that into a durable, scalable system.

**What you'll own**

- Architecture and technical direction across payroll, payments, and new products

- Engineering execution on the hardest problems in the stack

- Helping hire and tech-lead a small, high-quality team (starting ~5 engineers)

- Decisions on security, reliability, scalability, and compliance in your areas

- Tight partnership with product and ops to translate real workflows into systems

- Roadmaps, prioritization, and actually shipping

**What you'll build**

- Systems powering payroll and money movement

- Products across Spend, Docs, Cash, and Accounting

- Internal tooling that reduces manual work and errors

- Infrastructure that increases velocity without breaking things

**Your first 90 days**

_30 days_

- Get deep on the system, data flows, and constraints

- Identify the biggest risks (payments, data integrity, scaling)

- Ship a meaningful improvement on the spend product

_60 days_

- Start addressing the highest-leverage technical gaps

- Map out future builds across the roadmap

- Begin influencing how we hire and level engineers

_90 days_

- Set technical direction in your areas

- Improve engineering velocity and reliability

- Help build out our engineering in-person culture

**About you**

- You've built and scaled real systems

- You're still hands-on and like being close to the code

- Strong systems thinker

- You move fast and take ownership

- Comfortable operating in a regulated environment

- You've mentored or tech-led engineers before

Stack today: TypeScript + Java/Kotlin (flexible)

**Not a fit if**

- You want a pure management role

- You avoid ambiguity or messy real-world systems

- You're not willing to be in-person in NYC

**Why Thera**

- You shape the technical foundation in your areas

- You work directly with founders

- Your decisions immediately impact the company's trajectory

Backed by YC, 10X Founders, Zillionize, and Amino Capital.

More: [https://www.getthera.com/principles](https://www.getthera.com/principles)

Skills:

Java, Kotlin