Software Engineer
Company: Chariot
Location: New York, NY
Job Type: Full-time
Work Arrangement: Hybrid — 4 days in office, Monday–Thursday; work from home Friday
Salary: $180,000–$230,000 per year
Equity: Competitive equity package
Visa: Visa transfers considered, including eligible OPT and H-1B transfers
Openings: 3–4 positions
About Chariot
Chariot is building financial infrastructure that enables nonprofit organizations to move money efficiently and securely. Its payment platform already processes billions of dollars in nonprofit payments.
Chariot is growing its engineering team and is looking for talented Software Engineers who want meaningful ownership, technical autonomy, and the opportunity to work directly with founders and engineering leadership.
About the Role
We are looking for a Software Engineer with 2+ years of backend engineering experience to join Chariot's engineering team.
You will own production systems end-to-end — from architecture and design through implementation, deployment, monitoring, and ongoing improvement. You'll work directly with founders, product leaders, and engineers, with minimal organizational layers between you and decision-makers.
This is a high-autonomy environment where your technical judgment and opinions can directly influence what Chariot builds as well as how it is built.
We're looking for engineers who have strong technical convictions, communicate clearly, enjoy solving complex problems, and thrive in a fast-moving environment where whiteboarding, technical debate, experimentation, and shipping are part of the culture.
What You'll Do
- Design, build, deploy, and operate scalable backend services supporting Chariot's payment platform.
- Own engineering projects end-to-end, from requirements and architecture through implementation, testing, deployment, and production support.
- Contribute to architectural decisions involving APIs, distributed backend systems, data, and infrastructure.
- Build and maintain reliable services using modern backend and cloud technologies.
- Develop and maintain REST APIs and gRPC services.
- Improve system observability, monitoring, alerting, and production reliability.
- Analyze real-time system and product data to improve reliability and understand user behavior.
- Collaborate closely with founders, product managers, and engineers on technical design and product decisions.
- Participate in technical discussions, architecture reviews, and whiteboarding sessions.
- Work across different areas of Chariot's platform rather than being restricted to a single product or service.
- Help establish engineering standards, development practices, and scalable technical solutions.
Required Qualifications
- 2–10 years of professional experience in backend software engineering.
- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Software Engineering, or another closely related technical field.
- Experience building and owning scalable production backend systems end-to-end.
- Professional experience working at a growing technology company, high-growth startup, fintech company, or similarly demanding engineering environment.
- Hands-on production experience with Docker and Kubernetes.
- Strong understanding of backend engineering fundamentals, APIs, databases, distributed systems, and software architecture.
- Ability to take ownership of ambiguous technical problems and drive them toward production solutions.
- Strong written and verbal communication skills.
- Ability to work collaboratively in a highly autonomous engineering environment.
- Ability and willingness to work 4 days per week from Chariot's New York City office.
Preferred Qualifications
- Experience in fintech, payments, banking infrastructure, or financial technology.
- Production experience with Go and/or Node.js.
- Experience with AWS and cloud infrastructure.
- Experience with Terraform or infrastructure-as-code.
- Experience with PostgreSQL.
- Experience building or operating services using REST APIs and gRPC.
- Experience with Kubernetes-based production environments.
- Experience working in a venture-backed or high-growth startup environment.
Technology Stack
Go | Node.js | Docker | Kubernetes | Terraform | PostgreSQL | REST APIs | gRPC | AWS
You do not need to have experience with every technology listed above. Chariot is particularly interested in strong backend engineers who can demonstrate ownership of production systems and the ability to learn quickly.
What We're Looking For
The strongest candidates will:
- Take ownership rather than waiting for detailed instructions.
- Think deeply about architecture, scalability, reliability, and maintainability.
- Have strong technical opinions while remaining open to alternative approaches.
- Communicate clearly with both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
- Enjoy working directly with founders, senior engineering leadership, and product teams.
- Thrive in an environment where priorities can move quickly and engineers have significant influence over technical decisions.
- Care about shipping reliable, high-quality software.
Compensation & Benefits
- Base salary: $180,000–$230,000 annually
- Competitive equity package
- Full-time employment
- Hybrid work schedule: Monday–Thursday in office, Friday remote
- Opportunity to work on financial infrastructure operating at significant scale
- High level of technical ownership and visibility with Chariot's founders and engineering leadership
Location & Work Authorization
This role is based in New York City and requires employees to work from Chariot's office Monday through Thursday, with remote work available on Fridays.
Chariot will consider candidates who are currently authorized to work in the United States as well as eligible candidates requiring a visa transfer, including qualifying OPT and H-1B transfers.
Application Questions
As part of the application process, candidates may be asked:
- Are you able to work from Chariot's New York City office Monday through Thursday?
- If you are not currently located in the New York City area, are you willing to relocate?
- What are your salary expectations for your next opportunity?
- How actively are you currently exploring new opportunities?
- Do you have professional experience with Docker and Kubernetes?
- Which backend technologies have you used in production, particularly Go, Node.js, AWS, PostgreSQL, REST APIs, or gRPC?
- Do you have experience working with fintech, payments, or financial infrastructure?
Equal Opportunity
Chariot is committed to providing equal employment opportunities to all qualified applicants. Employment decisions are based on qualifications, experience, skills, and business needs, without regard to legally protected characteristics.
If you're a strong backend engineer who enjoys ownership, autonomy, technical problem-solving, and building systems that operate at significant scale, we'd love to hear from you.
Pay: $180,000.00 - $230,000.00 per year
Benefits:
- Employee assistance program
- Flexible schedule
- Relocation assistance
Application Question(s):
- What is your salary expectation?
- How actively are you exploring new opportunities?
- How actively is this candidate exploring new opportunities?
- Do you have professional experience with Docker and Kubernetes?
- Which backend technologies have you used in production, particularly Go, Node.js, AWS, PostgreSQL, REST APIs, or gRPC?
- Do you have experience working with fintech, payments, or financial infrastructure?If Yes please mention the number of years
- Have you applied to or interviewed with Chariot within the past 6 months, either directly or through a recruitment/consulting firm? If yes, please share when you applied or interviewed and the outcome of the process.
Ability to Relocate:
- New York, NY 10114: Relocate with an employer provided relocation package (Required)
Work Location: Hybrid remote in New York, NY 10114