Software Engineer (Backend)

Job Description

Software Engineer (Backend) | Acorns

At Acorns, we're building a different kind of investing experience - one that looks after the financial best interests of the up-and-coming. The Acorns team is passionate about pursuing our mission and living our values. It all begins with Heart. Our Heart leads us in everything we do. It allows us to make bold decisions, build trust, grow and advance our society. Come find your place at Acorns and join us in the movement to transform an industry.

Acorns is seeking experienced software engineers who have a passion for building robust, scalable, software and systems for customer focused financial products, love learning new technologies on the job, and think creatively to solve complex problems and enjoy working collaboratively.

As a backend engineer, you are responsible for translating high-level business requirements for new Acorns products and features into the services and data models that power them in a performant and scalable manner. Your typical week will involve collaborating with product, design & editorial and other engineering teams such as mobile, frontend, and QA to plan and create new features and infrastructure to build reliable and cohesive financial products.

This role will be based in our NYC office, at a desirable WeWork office in Soho area. Joining our newly formed NYC engineering team, you’ll have the opportunity to help develop a strong engineering culture, adopt efficient and practical PRD process and collaborate with our extremely talented and passionate design, product and editorial teams on site to drive 10x growth for our business.

Within 1 month, you will:

• Have the support of Acorns top engineering talent to learn how we do craftsmanship at Acorns
• Contribute to the team by owning issues and developing solutions to those issues
• Give back to the team by participating in peer reviews
• Deploy your code in production to millions of Acorns users

Within 6 months, you will:

• Take full ownership of backend applications integrating with internal and 3rd party systems, from requirements to implementation
• Improve backend codebase by developing a modular, performant, and maintainable service application and framework.
• Build efficient and reusable backend abstractions and frameworks; Optimize applications for low latency and high scalability on cross platforms

Within 12 months, you will:

• Lead projects that involve cross-functional teams to build major new features.
• Provide insight into backend development best practices and tools to increase developer velocity ; Support decisions around framework and tool choices.
• Elevate backend architecture design to increase and drive growth through Acorns’ cross platform initiatives.

What you will bring to Acorns:

• BS or MS in Computer Science or equivalent experience
• 3+ years of Ruby on Rails experience
• Working experience with PostgreSQL or other RDMS
• API design and implementation experience
• Understanding of basic algorithms, data structures and design patterns
• Experience of working in a face-pace Agile Environment
• Ownership of the software you produce
• The ability to embody all of Acorns values: lead with heart, make bold decisions, always build trust, never stop growing, advance our society.

Desired skills and experiences:

• Experience building Node.js applications
• Understanding of Microservice patterns & concepts & its application in problem solving
• Familiarity with cloud based infrastructures: AWS, GCP

What we offer:

• Competitive salary and stock options
• A comprehensive benefits package to meet the needs of you and your family
• Flexible paid time off
• Active WeWork community with weekly team lunches & an endless supply of snacks
• Convenient location in the heart of SoHo
• Numerous career possibilities that allow you to grow with Acorns
• Talented and motivated team members who care deeply about one another, our mission and our customers.
• The rare opportunity to create a new world. We inspire one another every day to do meaningful work that solves big societal challenges.

About Acorns:

Acorns is the leading micro-investing app in the U.S. It allows users to round up their daily purchases and automatically Invest the Change® into a low-cost, diversified portfolio of exchange-traded funds offered by some of the world's top asset managers (including Vanguard and BlackRock). Founded in Newport Beach, Calif., by father and son team Walter and Jeff Cruttenden, Acorns provides a simple entry-point using the Acorns app on iPhone or Android. Customers accumulate fractional shares in one of five portfolios constructed by world-renowned Nobel Laureate economist Dr. Harry Markowitz. Acorns' smart portfolio algorithms automatically work in the background of life, helping users build wealth naturally, pennies at a time. From Acorns mighty oaks do grow.

Mission:

With benevolence and courage, we look after the financial best interests of the up-and-coming; beginning with the empowering step of micro-investing.

Values:

1. Lead with heart
2. Make bold decisions
3. Always build trust
4. Never stop growing
5. Find a way