Software Engineer - Backend

Job description

**What we're doing** Owning a home is a foundational part of building financial security and wealth in America. However, the tools and technology that support homeownership are antiquated, dependent on things like fax machines, handwritten documentation, and hours of manual review. We're here to change it. Vesta was founded to rebuild the mortgage LOS from the ground up. Our founding belief is that the future of mortgage lending will be a fully automated process. Today, our AI augmented platform makes that a reality. Our mission has been to build a platform where AI isn’t just an add-on, but the core engine that transforms how a loan is actually manufactured. **Who we are** Our founding team is no stranger to the complexities of the financial industry. As early employees at Blend, they spent years together focused on creating modern cloud infrastructure for banks. Now, with Vesta, they are transforming the mortgage industry by creating the most flexible, open, and automated origination experience, benefiting financial institutions and their customers. And, we're not alone. We've raised $55M from top tier investors, including Andreessen Horowitz, Bain Capital Ventures, Conversion Capital, Zigg Capital, and Index Ventures. We believe that our team is our greatest competitive advantage and take pride in having a team of exceptional humans. As a team, we value humility, empathy, self-awareness, and an orientation towards action. If this sounds like you and you're excited by the idea of getting in at the ground level to be part of building the infrastructure that will power the future of the finance industry, we would love to hear from you! **Who you are** An ideal candidate is a product-minded backend engineer who wants to understand the business, but also loves solving the hard technical problems and finding creative solutions to bridge those two domains. You understand the balance of when to build quickly to deliver value sooner, but also when to build meticulously for mission-critical systems. You are someone who your teammates can depend on to get things done, takes responsibility for your commitments, and values a team that does the same for you. You love working alongside smart and talented people who are execution oriented. **About your role** You’ll work alongside full-stack engineers, bringing deep backend and systems expertise to ensure the product functionality we build is scalable and reliable. You will be partnering closely with product and engineering teammates to design, build, and operate backend systems that directly support customer-facing features as they grow in complexity and usage. Working at an early-stage startup means there is a strong sense of ownership across the team. While we support flexible schedules and trust people to manage their time, there will be moments when mission-critical work requires extra effort outside of typical working hours. We’re looking for teammates who are comfortable with that reality and who care deeply about the success of the product and the team. You’ll be expected to take ownership of the backend and systems aspects of product features from early design through production and scale to ensure the product continues to perform reliably as the business grows. We intentionally keep this role flexible and tailored to individual strengths. The areas below are not rigid requirements, but examples of experience that are especially relevant for the engineers we’re looking for: - Comfortable working in an early-stage startup environment where mission-critical work may occasionally require effort outside typical working hours. - Experience building and operating production-grade **distributed systems** that support real product functionality at meaningful scale - Strong backend engineering focus; full-stack experience is welcome, but **deep systems and backend expertise** is essential - Hands-on experience working with **multi-service architectures** in a production environment - Ownership of **performance, reliability, and scalability** work tied directly to product features (e.g., query optimization, indexing, identifying and resolving system bottlenecks) - Fluency in using **modern AI tooling** as part of your development workflow - Proficiency in at least one strongly typed backend language (**C#, Java, Kotlin, Go, or similar**) - Hands-on experience with relational databases, preferably **PostgreSQL**, including schema design and performance tuning - Familiarity with cloud-based production environments (**AWS preferred**), and experience with technologies such as Kafka, Redis, or similar infrastructure components - Strong **systems design** instincts, with the ability to reason about scalability, performance, and reliability tradeoffs as product features evolve - Comfortable operating with a high degree of autonomy, owning backend responsibilities end-to-end while collaborating closely with full-stack engineers - Strong bias toward building practical, iterative solutions to real business problems, with minimal process overhead or unnecessary meetings - Willingness to travel a few times per year for team offsites within the United States **Benefits and Perks** - Robust medical, vision, & dental coverage (~100% of employee premiums covered) - FSA plan offering - 401(K) plan offering - Meaningful parental leave - 16 weeks fully paid for all new parents, birthing & non-birthing parents (applies to adoptions as well!) - Remote-first culture with a physical hub in the bay area! - Generous Work From Anywhere & Wellness Benefits - Monthly cell & wifi stipend - Monthly Doordash benefits - Open & encouraged flexible time off - Company offsites to get to know the team! Our cash compensation amount for this role is targeted at $180,000 - $225,000. Final offer amounts are determined by multiple factors including candidate experience and expertise and may vary from the amounts listed above. At Vesta, we believe that the only way we can tackle the challenging problems in front of us is by having diverse perspectives and an environment that promotes inclusivity. We’re committed to equal opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, gender, gender identity, parental or pregnancy status, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, or veteran status. Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, we will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records. As part of our onboarding process, we participate in the E-Verify program.