Senior Backend Engineer

Job Title: Founding Software Engineer

Package: $175K - $225K + meaningful equity

Location: New York City (5 days per week in office)

Launchpad Recruitment are partnering with a venture-backed AI fintech startup building the modern data platform for alternative investments. Backed by leading VCs and senior operators from firms including Goldman Sachs, they’re tackling a huge market still heavily reliant on spreadsheets and legacy systems.

They’re now hiring a Founding Software Engineer to join as employee #4 in New York.

This is a true 0→1 opportunity for an engineer who wants ownership, autonomy, and direct influence over both product and engineering culture from the ground floor.

The Role

You’ll work directly with the founders and design partners to build core infrastructure powering data management and workflows across alternative investments.

The role is heavily backend-focused, with exposure to product, customer workflows, infrastructure, and architecture decisions from day one.

You’ll be expected to move quickly, prototype rapidly, and help shape both the technical roadmap and broader company direction.

Responsibilities

→    Design and build scalable backend systems and APIs

→    Develop infrastructure for ingesting, transforming, and analysing structured and unstructured financial data

→    Work closely with customers to translate real-world workflows into product features

→    Contribute to architecture, engineering standards, and hiring as the team scales

→    Help build a high-performance engineering culture within a fast-moving startup environment

Tech Stack

→    Python

→    Java

→    Go

→    AWS

→    Redis

→    Temporal

Candidate Profile

→    2+ years of software engineering experience

→    Strong backend engineering experience using Python, Java, or Go

→    Experience building scalable APIs and distributed systems

→    Strong data modelling and database design capability

→    Comfortable operating in ambiguity and startup environments

→    Product-minded engineer who enjoys customer interaction and rapid iteration

→    Strong communication skills and ownership mentality

Nice to Have

→    Experience within fintech, investment platforms, or financial data products

→    Exposure to alternative investments or hedge fund workflows

→    Experience building AI-enabled or agentic systems

→    Previous early-stage startup or 0→1 experience

Package

→    $175k-$225k base salary

→    Meaningful equity package

→    On-site in NYC

→    Founding engineer opportunity (employee #4)

Why Join?

→    Build in a massive $24T market undergoing major digital transformation

→    Work directly with experienced founders from Goldman Sachs and leading hedge funds

→    Influence product, engineering culture, and company direction from day one

→    Solve real operational problems for some of the largest investment firms in the world

→    Join an ambitious, high-calibre team at an extremely early stage

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