Founding Software Engineer

The role

Raydar is recruiting for this role on behalf of our client. Build backend systems and data-heavy services for a regulated financial platform, taking initiatives from early planning through to launch while helping set the technical direction of a small engineering team.

What you'll do

• Design and build automated workflows for regulated financial operations, including transaction monitoring, compliance checks and document handling.
• Build and extend an accounting ledger that tracks income and principal, with correctness enforced in the database and API layers.
• Create evaluation tooling and test pipelines for AI-assisted features, including repeatable checks in CI/CD.
• Partner with operations leads and founders to learn user pain points and convert them into requirements and a prioritized backlog.
• Build integrations with payment providers, compliance vendors and financial institutions, weighing build-versus-buy decisions on correctness and security.
• Design security-focused infrastructure covering authentication, encryption of sensitive data, audit logging and observability.
• Contribute to frontend work that makes complex legal and financial structures easier to understand.
• Own initiatives end to end, from early planning through release, and help define the long-term technical foundations of the company.

What we're looking for

• 3 or more years building production systems, mainly on the backend.
• Prior experience launching new systems from scratch at a small, early-stage technology company, ideally in an early engineering, founding or lead capacity.
• Comfort owning several areas at once with little structure, including defining requirements without being told what to do.
• Daily use of AI coding tools in your development work.
• Ability to work on-site five days a week.
• Strong production relational database skills, including schema design, constraints and migrations.

Bonus points

• Hands-on experience with LLM workflows, such as agent harnesses, evaluation loops or agent tooling.
• A strong security mindset.
• Deep PostgreSQL or DevOps experience.
• Background in fintech or another regulated industry.

Compensation and benefits

• Base salary: USD 150,000 to 250,000 per year
• Equity

Location and work model

• New York, NY, United States
• On-site, 5 days a week
• Full-time