Director of Engineering

About Backpack

Backpack is a financial technology company working to make education more accessible and affordable. We believe in two fundamental truths:

1. Paying tuition should be fee free. Tuition is expensive enough, without the 2-3% tax current incumbent payment platforms charge for payments.
2. There is an opportunity to massively improve operational efficiency of the archaic education payment processes through technology.

Our mission is to build payments technology that creates deflationary impacts on the cost of education. While we started with 529 College Saving Accounts, we have expanded to help our University partners accept other non-debt payment types that make education more accessible to all students, including outside scholarships and third party payments.

We have raised a $5m Seed Round from Walkabout Ventures, Mischief Capital and founders and executives from companies like SoFi, Chime, Plaid, Lithic, Vouch, Point 72 and more. This sets us up brilliantly for sustainable growth of team and scale to make this vision a reality.

What You’ll Do

• Develop and communicate the long-term technical vision for Backpack's platform, ensuring alignment with our mission to make education more accessible and affordable.
• Provide strong technical leadership and guidance, setting the technical vision and software architecture, while mentoring a high-velocity engineering team.
• Foster a culture of innovation and ownership, empowering your team to solve complex challenges while maintaining a clear focus on delivering value to our customers.
• Design and build a new education payments system, applying modern technologies and capabilities to the most pressing issues of our University and Student Family customers.
• Help shape the product roadmap for Backpack as a crucial member of the leadership team, prioritizing for the highest business and customer impact.
• Drive and embed a culture of security into engineering teams and systems. Own the security program and interface with our Bank Partner to ensure a robust InfoSec program.

What You'll Bring

• You have 8+ years in software engineering, with significant experience in leading and expanding engineering teams during periods of high growth.
• You possess deep knowledge of modern software development practices, architecture, and infrastructure, with a background in building and scaling complex, high-availability systems.
• You are someone that can straddle an understanding of customer needs, business outcomes, and technical requirements to deliver exceptional products
• You are a proven leader that is also not afraid to individually contribute (all Backpackers own projects strategically and deliver tactically)
• You never stopped coding, and are excited about leading projects end to end by being an insanely strong IC (we are all ICs at Backpack)
• You have exceptional skills in leading and communicating with teams, capable of inspiring and motivating engineers while effectively influencing stakeholders.
• You have a proven track record in attracting, hiring, and nurturing top engineering talent, with at least three (3) years in people-management roles.
• You are comfortable working in a fast-paced, dynamic environment with a focus on delivering smoothly - the required combination of fast but accurate needed when handling money.

What We Offer

• Competitive Salary: $170,000 to $220,000
• Equity Ownership: Competitive equity package
• Hybrid Work: Remote first, though we have an office in NY and hold onsites every ~6 weeks
• Comprehensive Benefits: Medical, dental, and vision insurance
• Generous PTO: As a company, we conduct company wide “recharge” weeks where everyone has time off. We find these to be important tools that allow us to sprint hard when we are on. We have a flexible PTO policy outside of these recharge weeks.

Our Standards

Building a completely new education payments system is a large undertaking, and one that requires extremely high standards from our team to deliver.

• Users first. Our ability to make a lasting impact on the world relies on building a durable business, and the single way to build a durable business is to always put our Users first. We think critically about their needs, and always orient our decision making around creating outcomes that improve the lives and experiences of our Users.
• Raise the bar. We constantly push the ‘why not’ in chasing the best outcomes for our Users and Backpack. We act as owners, hunting for opportunities to improve our company, product and people. We do not back away from a challenge and are proactive about solving hard problems. We test with urgency, seek feedback and build meticulously to create things that raise the bar.
• Results oriented. We focus on delivering outcomes with integrity. We don’t get complacent or rely on the way things are ‘supposed to be done’. We are comfortable in the uncomfortable and revel in pushing through ambiguity using creativity to get to the best outcome.
• Work hard and outwork. We just work hard. We are working to build a legacy and know that means needing to outwork others. We do this for, and with, each other and never throw the ‘hospital pass’ or look the other way.
• Blameless and accountable. Pushing the boundaries and working with urgency means that mistakes will be made. We have made a commitment to a blameless culture where no one is punished for mistakes. We have also made the commitment to hold ourselves accountable, where we do not cut corners and run down every loose end to ensure we deliver excellence.

How we work together

While our Standards define how we work and how we deliver, there are also some important concepts that guide and drive how we treat each other in the day to day.

• We are transparent. We act with full transparency and zero ulterior motives. We deliver on this through over communicating and documenting everything - love letters to our future selves, our current and future Backpackers.
• We are inclusive. We are intentional about making choices that allow anyone who believes in our mission and standards to work with us. This is reflected in everything from the big strategic decisions we make, the tools we use, and the little day to day stuff.
• We are compassionately direct. We do not obfuscate or obscure any truth, but rather seek out unconformable truths to make us and everyone around us better. We do make sure we are thoughtful and compassionate in how we deliver these truths.
• We help each other grow through feedback. A core trait of a Backpacker is constantly wanting to be better and get better. We help each other do this by proactively helping each other out and providing constructive, actionable feedback.
• We have fun doing it. We know we are doing important work but we do not take ourselves too seriously. We take the time to have fun and create an environment where working together is organically fun and fulfilling.

Backpack is proud to be an Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action employer. We do not discriminate based upon race, religion, color, national origin, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, gender expression, transgender status, sexual stereotypes, age, status as a protected veteran, status as an individual with a disability, or other applicable legally protected characteristics. We also consider qualified applicants with criminal histories, consistent with applicable federal, state, and local law.