Associate Software Engineer (Tempe)

About the Role

United States citizenship is required for this position

Better Direct is seeking an Associate Software Engineer with 1–2 years of experience to help build and improve our internal CRM and business systems.

Our platform supports opportunities, quotes, engineering approvals, inventory, purchasing, sales orders, invoicing, document storage, and external integrations. Because these workflows are interconnected and central to daily operations, engineers must understand how a change affects the broader system—not just one screen or API.

We use AI development tools extensively. We value engineers who can understand a problem, design a sound solution, guide AI tools effectively, validate their output, and take ownership of the final result.

Key Responsibilities

• Build and maintain features using React, TypeScript, Node.js, Express, Prisma, and PostgreSQL
• Translate business workflows into clear, reliable technical solutions
• Work across frontend, backend, database, storage, and integration layers
• Design APIs, database schemas, validations, and permission controls
• Protect data integrity for customer, financial, inventory, and order information
• Diagnose root causes across the system rather than only fixing visible symptoms
• Handle migrations, backfills, concurrent updates, and failure scenarios safely
• Integrate external APIs with appropriate retries, timeouts, idempotency, and error handling
• Consider performance in queries, APIs, background jobs, and user-facing workflows
• Write tests for business rules, permissions, edge cases, and failure conditions
• Debug production issues using logs, database records, and system behavior
• Review code for correctness, security, maintainability, and impact on existing workflows
• Document important technical decisions and communicate changes clearly
• Own focused features from requirements through release and production verification

AI-Assisted Engineering

AI-assisted development is part of how we work. Engineers may use tools such as OpenAI Codex to research unfamiliar systems, explore solutions, write code, generate tests, debug issues, and create documentation.

However, the engineer is responsible for the quality and safety of the final result. You should be able to:

• Break unclear requests into well-defined technical tasks
• Provide AI tools with the right context, constraints, and acceptance criteria
• Read, understand, and explain the code you submit
• Identify incomplete, unsafe, or unnecessarily complex AI-generated solutions
• Verify assumptions in the existing codebase, database, and application behavior
• Evaluate technical tradeoffs and select practical solutions
• Confirm that changes fit the architecture and preserve existing workflows
• Test security, permissions, data integrity, performance, and edge cases
• Use approved tools responsibly with company and customer data
• Troubleshoot and support your work after release

Required Qualifications

• 1–2 years of professional software development experience
• Strong working knowledge of React and TypeScript
• Experience building backend services with Node.js, Express, and REST APIs
• Solid understanding of SQL, PostgreSQL, and relational data modeling
• Ability to navigate an existing codebase before making changes
• Understanding of API design, validation, error handling, and secure coding practices
• Familiarity with authentication and role-based authorization
• Experience with Git, testing, code review, and debugging
• Experience using AI coding tools while independently validating their output
• Ability to explain technical decisions, risks, and uncertainties clearly
• Practical understanding of how applications behave in development and production

Engineering Skills We Value

• Systems thinking: understanding how application layers and integrations work together
• Data correctness: preventing duplicate, missing, inconsistent, or unauthorized changes
• Problem-solving: finding root causes and comparing practical solutions
• Scalability awareness: recognizing designs that may become slow or difficult to maintain
• Production ownership: verifying releases and responding when issues occur
• Business understanding: learning why a workflow exists, not only how to implement it
• Maintainability: writing code that other engineers can understand and extend
• Good judgment: knowing when to proceed, investigate further, or ask for help

We do not expect an Associate Software Engineer to know everything on day one. We do expect curiosity, disciplined thinking, a willingness to learn quickly, and steady growth toward greater technical ownership.

Nice-to-Have Experience

• Material UI or MUI X
• TanStack Query or TanStack Router
• Redux Toolkit
• Prisma ORM and Zod
• MinIO or other S3-compatible object storage
• Background jobs, queues, caching, or asynchronous processing
• Python, FastAPI, Celery, Redis, Selenium, or pytest
• Performance analysis, database indexing, or query optimization
• CI/CD, application monitoring, structured logging, or production deployments
• Third-party business, catalog, ordering, or payment API integrations

Compensation and Eligibility

• Base salary: $60,000–$70,000 per year, based on experience
• Better Direct is an equal opportunity employer under applicable law