Senior Software Engineer - Backend

Senior Software Engineer – Backend

• Location: San Francisco Bay Area, CA strongly preferred - hybrid from our San Ramon office (3 days a week); Core hours 7:00 AM – 4:00 PM PT.
• Compensation: The US base salary range for this full-time position is $120,000 – $180,000 + up to 15% performance-based bonus. The position is eligible for performance-based equity compensation.
• Work Authorization: Candidates must be authorized to work in the United States on a full-time basis. Visa sponsorship is not available for this position.

About ARIVE

ARIVE (arive.com) is the industry's first integrated LOS, POS, and Pricing Engine with a connected Lender Marketplace, purpose-built for independent mortgage originators. We are a dynamic high-growth company revolutionizing digital mortgage originations, and our platform seamlessly connects independent loan originators, top-tier wholesale lenders, borrowers, referral partners, credit providers, and property and settlement service providers — creating a faster, more transparent, and more affordable path to homeownership.

Position Overview

We're seeking a talented Senior Backend Engineer to design, support, and scale the services at the heart of the ARIVE platform — the engine powering loan originations for thousands of independent mortgage brokers nationwide. You'll work hands-on with Node.js, TypeScript, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, AWS, and Docker, partnering closely with product, frontend, and DevOps teams to ship high-quality, cloud-native features at startup speed.

A key part of this role is production ownership — partnering with our support team to troubleshoot at-scale production issues, driving root cause to resolution, and hardening the platform so problems stay fixed. You'll also coordinate closely with our US architects and India-based engineering team for new features. This is a high-ownership role for an engineer who loves solving hard distributed-systems and data problems in a domain where reliability, performance, and security truly matter. You'll take end-to-end ownership of major workstreams alongside our most senior architects — freeing them to focus on next-generation platform initiatives. Join us and make a meaningful, sustainable impact alongside some of the industry's brightest minds.

Key Responsibilities

• Design & Build: Architect, develop, and maintain scalable RESTful APIs and backend services using Node.js and TypeScript, powering mission-critical loan origination workflows.
• Data Engineering: Design efficient database schemas and optimize queries and migrations across PostgreSQL and MongoDB; implement caching strategies (e.g., Redis) for high-throughput workloads.
• Cloud & Containers: Build, test, and deploy containerized applications with Docker; deploy and operate services on AWS (EC2, Lambda, RDS, S3, SQS).
• DevOps Collaboration: Partner with DevOps to strengthen CI/CD pipelines, infrastructure-as-code, and observability (logging, metrics, tracing, alerting).
• Reliability & Security: Champion system reliability, performance, and secure coding best practices — our platform handles sensitive borrower data, and we operate in a SOC 2 Type II environment where security is a first-class engineering concern.
• Production Ownership: Partner with our Support team as an engineering point of contact for escalated production issues at scale — triage, root-cause, and resolve end-to-end, then land the permanent fix, alerting, and runbooks so issues don’t recur. Drive performance optimization across the backend and data layers.
• Global Collaboration: Coordinate daily with our India-based engineering team — handoffs, code reviews, and design alignment — keeping core hours of 7:00 AM – 4:00 PM PT to maximize morning overlap.
• Technical Leadership: Lead technical design sessions and code reviews, mentor mid-level engineers, and contribute to product planning and architectural roadmaps.

Things We Look For

• Experience: 5+ years of hands-on backend engineering experience with most, if not all, of the following: Node.js, TypeScript, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, AWS, and Docker.
• API & Systems Design: Strong command of RESTful API design, microservices and event-driven architectures, and message queues (e.g., SQS, Kafka, RabbitMQ).
• Data Fluency: Deep experience with both relational and NoSQL data modeling, query optimization, indexing strategies, and zero-downtime migrations.
• Quality Mindset: Solid habits around automated testing (unit, integration, E2E), code review, and CI/CD; you ship fast without breaking things.
• Security Awareness: Working knowledge of secure SDLC practices — authN/authZ patterns (OAuth 2.0, JWT), OWASP Top 10, and handling sensitive data in a regulated environment.
• Observability: Experience with monitoring and APM tooling (e.g., Datadog, CloudWatch, New Relic) and a bias toward measuring before optimizing.
• Escalation Experience: You’ve served as an engineering point of contact for support escalations and stay calm and methodical when debugging live production systems under pressure.
• AI-Forward: You leverage AI coding tools to maximize your speed and output — and are excited to help build AI-powered capabilities into the platform.
• Startup DNA: Proactive, self-directed, and comfortable with ambiguity; you thrive in a fast-paced, high-ownership environment and communicate clearly across teams.
• Bonus Points: FinTech, mortgage, or other regulated-industry experience; familiarity with LOS/POS platforms or the loan origination lifecycle is a strong plus.

What We Offer

• Compensation: The US base salary range for this full-time position is $120,000 – $180,000 + up to 15% performance-based bonus. The position is eligible for performance-based equity compensation. Our salary ranges are determined by location, level, and role; individual compensation will be determined by experience, skills, and job-related knowledge.
• Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision insurance.
• 401(k) plan with employer match.
• Generous PTO policy.
• Endless learning and growth opportunities in a fast-paced, growth-mode startup environment.
• A supportive, inclusive, and high-performance company culture.

Note: ARIVE is an Equal Opportunity Employer. Qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability or protected veteran status or any other characteristic protected by local, state, or federal laws, rules, or regulations.