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At a glance
Job overview
Thera is hiring a Staff Engineer. Thera is building the financial OS for modern SMBs, offering payroll, payments, treasury, spend, accounting, and docs. The Staff Engineer will own the technical foundation, drive architecture across payroll and payments, lead a small engineering team, make high‑stakes decisions on security, reliability, scalability, and partner with product and ops to ship systems.
Key focus areas include Own architecture and technical direction across payroll, payments, and new products, Execute engineering on hardest problems in the stack, and Hire and tech‑lead a small high‑quality engineering team.
Successful candidates bring Built And Scaled Real Systems, Hands-On Coding, and In-Person In NYC. Important skills include Systems Thinking, Ownership, Operating In Regulated Environment, Mentoring Engineers, and Tech-Leading Engineers. Preferred (not required): TypeScript, Java, and Kotlin.
Skills & qualifications
Skills
Qualifications
Full 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:
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a product customers use
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real workflows running through it
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increasing complexity across payments, accounting, and ops
We need someone who can turn that into a durable, scalable system.
What you'll own
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Architecture and technical direction across payroll, payments, and new products
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Engineering execution on the hardest problems in the stack
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Helping hire and tech-lead a small, high-quality team (starting ~5 engineers)
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Decisions on security, reliability, scalability, and compliance in your areas
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Tight partnership with product and ops to translate real workflows into systems
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Roadmaps, prioritization, and actually shipping
What you'll build
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Systems powering payroll and money movement
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Products across Spend, Docs, Cash, and Accounting
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Internal tooling that reduces manual work and errors
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Infrastructure that increases velocity without breaking things
Your first 90 days
30 days
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Get deep on the system, data flows, and constraints
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Identify the biggest risks (payments, data integrity, scaling)
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Ship a meaningful improvement on the spend product
60 days
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Start addressing the highest-leverage technical gaps
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Map out future builds across the roadmap
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Begin influencing how we hire and level engineers
90 days
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Set technical direction in your areas
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Improve engineering velocity and reliability
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Help build out our engineering in-person culture
About you
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You've built and scaled real systems
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You're still hands-on and like being close to the code
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Strong systems thinker
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You move fast and take ownership
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Comfortable operating in a regulated environment
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You've mentored or tech-led engineers before
Stack today: TypeScript + Java/Kotlin (flexible)
Not a fit if
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You want a pure management role
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You avoid ambiguity or messy real-world systems
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You're not willing to be in-person in NYC
Why Thera
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You shape the technical foundation in your areas
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You work directly with founders
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Your decisions immediately impact the company's trajectory
Backed by YC, 10X Founders, Zillionize, and Amino Capital.
You've read the whole posting — now see how you match it.