US Founding Engineer

Job description

**Few people get to build a bank from scratch. Even fewer get to build one at a moment when banking itself is being reinvented.** The Dollar is the best product in the history of the world - there is infinite global demand. But International Fintechs and non-US banks are left with two unsatisfying options to access it: Either they build on legacy clearing banks that are slow and unreliable, or they interface with middleware providers that don’t move and hold the dollars directly, but themselves rely on underlying legacy banks. Augustus collapses this stack by combining two things: A real, national bank charter (in organization), and Marble, our proprietary core banking system, built around intelligence, made of code. We are a group of operators, unicorn early employees, ex-founders and people who walked away from degrees because they believe this is an industry and career defining opportunity. We are backed with more than $200M from Peter Thiel's Valar Ventures, Tiger Global, Hummingbird, QED, Creandum, and the founders of Nubank, Ramp, Deel, Circle, Fluidstack, Fuse, and n8n. We are regulated in Europe and live with Euro and Stablecoin clearing today. Now, we are building the US team from the ground up, while continuing to grow rapidly in Europe. # **The Role** You will be one of the first engineers on the ground in the states, in our new NYC office. You're a super IC in a small, elite engineering team. You work on core banking systems and own projects end to end. You take on big projects, drive them yourself, and deliver. You work with engineering, product, and clients. You turn complex financial problems into clean code. You're trusted with the big calls from day 1; system design, technical tradeoffs, what we build and what we don't. The team is small on purpose, that means you have a lot of ownership, you move fast, and you make decisions that actually matter. You're part of the product engineering team building the Programmable Bank - a bank for the new age of money movement, built around Digital Assets and AI. Your team builds the banking core across bare metal central bank infrastructure and blockchain infrastructure. We're building a Swiss clock: your job is precision engineering, translating a complex system into simple, clean code that runs reliably at scale. # **Your First Six Months** Understand the codebase and increase your ownership rapidly. - **Months 1-2:** You ramp up fast. Understand the codebase, the domain, the product and ship meaningful code in your first weeks. Pick up a major project as an IC and start driving it. You're pairing with the team but operating independently early. - **Months 3-4:** You've shipped your first big project end to end. You know the domain well enough to push back on product decisions when something doesn't make sense. You're starting to influence technical direction - how we model data, how we handle edge cases, where we take shortcuts and where we don't. - **Months 5-6:** You're one of the people the team relies on for the hardest problems. You scope and drive projects autonomously. You have strong opinions on how the core banking systems should evolve and you're acting on them. Junior engineers come to you because your code is clean and your thinking is clear. # **Who Will Thrive At Augustus** We believe that throwing smart people with high agency at big problems produces the best outcomes. The people who succeed here share the following traits: - **Relentless:** You can't leave something broken. You don't stop because it got hard or because no one is watching. - **Set The Bar:** You're harder on yourself than anyone else would be. You don't need external accountability to care about quality. - **Shape The Game:** You don't wait for a playbook and you don't need one. You walk into genuinely new territory and figure it out. You move before anyone asked you to. - **Systems First:** You don't solve problems by adding people or effort. You build systems that make the problem smaller. Your first instinct is to automate, not to handle it manually. **This role is for you if:** - Your former teammates would put you in the top 5% of engineers they've worked with - your code is clean, correct, and easy to delete. - You merge your PR today, not tomorrow. You ship and iterate rather than wait for perfection. - You want to build core banking systems that handle real money, not another CRUD app. - You care about simplicity more than cleverness. - You'd rather own a problem end to end than wait for someone to hand you a spec. - You want to work alongside people who are genuinely great at what they do. **This is not for you if:** - You think that a new fancy pattern or architecture principle will solve all your problems. - You think "that's not my problem" is an acceptable answer. - You can not follow other team member’s decisions. - You are closing your macbook at 5pm sharp and don’t care about your work. - You are not passionate about what you do. # **Hard Requirements** - 3+ years of hands-on software engineering experience (backend-focused). - 1+ years in early-stage or small startup environments. - Based in New York or willing to relocate. # **Pay transparency** Compensation packages at Augustus include base salary, equity, and benefits. New hire offers are made based on a candidate's experience, expertise and geographic location. The annual US base salary range for this role is $200,000-$400,000 + equity. # **What We Offer** - **Career Growth:** You will be given more responsibility and pushed to grow faster than ever before. - **Network:** Your peers are brilliant, highly motivated people. These people will be foundational in your future opportunities. - **Real Participation:** Employees are shareholders. You will think and act like an owner. - **Perks & Benefits:** Relocation support, visa support, the latest Apple gear (MacBook + AirPods), lunch benefit, gym benefit, a beautiful office in the heart of the city, 4x on-/offsites per year, and an annual development budget. Additional to the global benefits above, we offer localized benefits such as comprehensive medical, dental, and vision insurance and a 401(k) retirement plan for our US team. *Augustus is committed to creating an inclusive environment where people from all backgrounds can thrive and where different viewpoints and experiences are valued and respected. Augustus will consider all applications for employment without regard to race, ethnicity, national origin, religious beliefs, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, neurodiversity, disability, age, parental or veteran status.*