Staff Engineer

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: