About GoodRoots

GoodRoots is a real estate startup that turns renters into homeowners through our new home equity program. By providing first-time homebuyers with a new, low-cost alternative to mortgages through our next-gen fintech platform, GoodRoots unlocks ownership for millions of households in the country’s most expensive housing markets. Our vision is to usher in a world where anyone can put down roots, grow a family and build a thriving community, regardless of housing affordability.

After incubating our business on the Harvard University campus, we’ve onboarded our first customers, shipped our first MVP and closed on our $2M pre-seed round from a Tier 1 early stage VC investor. Now we’re focused on building the foundational product team to establish the technical vision for the company and iterate quickly towards demonstrated product-market fit.

About the Role

• As our Founding Engineer, you’ll be the cornerstone of our technical initiatives, transforming our strategic vision into robust, scalable software. You will lead the technical vision for the product, build the next iterations of our platform, and directly influence the product’s direction by listening to user feedback and anticipating market needs.

• This role combines deeply creative development work, “getting your hands dirty” with code, leading development projects and watching your impact on our customers directly.

What You Will Do

• Spearhead the development of our software product, from conception through deployment, focusing on creating a streamlined user experience.

• Set technical standards and ensure our software architecture balances scalability with adaptability.

• Work closely with the Founder (me) to align the technological developments with business goals, making strategic decisions that will shape the future of homeownership.

• Shape near-term development priorities through in-depth research, technical feasibility analyses, brainstorms and user tests.

• Participate in regular evaluations of GoodRoots, including decisions around our value proposition, business model and overall strategy.

• Engage with customers to gather data, derive insights and deepen your intuition about the problem space of housing attainability.

• Vet new candidates for technical skill and personal traits, including new hires for your own development team.

Where, When and How

• As part of the founding product team, you’ll work in person in downtown Bellevue. You’ll be in the office for collaborative work but you’ll have flexibility to execute “deep thinking” work wherever you’d like.

• We write down our ideas and decisions in clear, simple language. We strive to be effective writers, and we take time to read each others’ work.

About You

• You are frustrated by the lack of affordable housing. You’ve considered moving to another metro area to buy your first home and settle down, but you hate the idea of uprooting your life to do it.

• You crave a fast-paced, hands-on environment where a few highly competent teammates sit in a room together talking to customers, learning, building and shipping constantly.

• You are the kind of person that doesn’t wait for permission to do the right thing. You are comfortable working in a dynamic, fast-changing environment without oversight and can self-manage to hit ambitious deadlines.

• You take pride in your work product, but you’re even more focused on achieving amazing outcomes for your customers, partners and teammates. You believe shipping on time is more important than developing perfect software.

• You’re sick of office politics and you want to be part of a team that’s highly transparent with each other, and where everyone is invested in each other’s success. You crave perspectives that challenge your own ideas. Truth and shared understanding are more important to you than protecting egos.

• You’re willing to work outside of your comfort zone (and job description) to achieve our goals, learn new skills and grow as a professional. No job is too big or too small for you.

What We’re Looking For

• 5+ years of hands-on experience building software products and implementing scalable front-end and back-end components, including making foundational architectural decisions.

• 2+ years' experience working in a fintech, proptech, blockchain, insurtech or similar business including working knowledge of systems for payment processing, transaction ledgering, transaction reconciliation, mortgage servicing, cash flow forecasting, consumer-facing financial tools, asset pricing models or consumer credit underwriting models.

• High proficiency in both high-level and lower-level programming languages, including Java, Ruby, Python, and/or JavaScript.

• Deep understanding of database architecture including relational (SQL), non-relational (NoSQL, object-oriented, time series, graph, etc.) and multi-modal databases.

• Skilled in building RESTful APIs, and solid experience with AWS, Docker, and Kubernetes.

Nice to Haves

• Prior experience with mobile platform development (iOS, Android, or cross-platform).

• Demonstrated experience building machine learning & predictive analytics applications.

• Demonstrated on a product team at an early stage company that achieved product-market fit.

• Advanced knowledge in data privacy and regulatory compliance (e.g., GDPR, CCPA, PCI DSS).

Benefits & Perks

• High impact and ownership. As a member of the founding product team, you’re working directly with the founder to shape your own work and define the technical vision for the overall company. If we get this right, you’ll be part of a once-in-a-generation innovation in housing affordability.

• Support. The company will provide the space, food and equipment you need to thrive. I'll give you space to think deeply and run with your ideas, while offering a collaborative environment to get supportive feedback and foster an incredible team.

• Competitive compensation including equity options.

• Health, dental, and vision insurance.