Staff Engineer

Job Description

Job Description

Staff Engineer, Thera (NYC, in-person)

Thera is building the financial OS for modern SMBs. Payroll, payments, treasury, spend, accounting, and docs in one system that actually works end-to-end.

We're looking for a hands-on Staff Engineer to own the technical foundation in our highest-leverage areas and help us scale from "great product" to category-defining company.

This is not a sit-back-and-manage role. You'll be in the code, in the architecture, and in the room making high-stakes decisions daily.

NYC, 5 days/week

Why this role exists

We have:

• a product customers use

• real workflows running through it

• increasing complexity across payments, accounting, and ops

We need someone who can turn that into a durable, scalable system.

What you'll own

• Architecture and technical direction across payroll, payments, and new products

• Engineering execution on the hardest problems in the stack

• Helping hire and tech-lead a small, high-quality team (starting ~5 engineers)

• Decisions on security, reliability, scalability, and compliance in your areas

• Tight partnership with product and ops to translate real workflows into systems

• Roadmaps, prioritization, and actually shipping

What you'll build

• Systems powering payroll and money movement

• Products across Spend, Docs, Cash, and Accounting

• Internal tooling that reduces manual work and errors

• Infrastructure that increases velocity without breaking things

Your first 90 days

30 days

• Get deep on the system, data flows, and constraints

• Identify the biggest risks (payments, data integrity, scaling)

• Ship a meaningful improvement on the spend product

60 days

• Start addressing the highest-leverage technical gaps

• Map out future builds across the roadmap

• Begin influencing how we hire and level engineers

90 days

• Set technical direction in your areas

• Improve engineering velocity and reliability

• Help build out our engineering in-person culture

About you

• You've built and scaled real systems

• You're still hands-on and like being close to the code

• Strong systems thinker

• You move fast and take ownership

• Comfortable operating in a regulated environment

• You've mentored or tech-led engineers before

Stack today: TypeScript + Java/Kotlin (flexible)

Not a fit if

• You want a pure management role

• You avoid ambiguity or messy real-world systems

• You're not willing to be in-person in NYC

Why Thera

• You shape the technical foundation in your areas

• You work directly with founders

• Your decisions immediately impact the company's trajectory

Backed by YC, 10X Founders, Zillionize, and Amino Capital.

More:

Compensation Range: $100K - $250K