About Altruist
Altruist is the modern custodian built exclusively for independent financial advisors that combines a self-clearing brokerage firm with intuitive software for account opening, trading, reporting, and billing — all in one streamlined solution. Financial advisors across the U.S. have partnered with Altruist to reduce costs, save time, grow their business, and provide better outcomes for their clients. Our mission is to make financial advice better, more affordable, and accessible to everyone — but we can’t do it alone. We’re seeking exceptional talent to join our team. That’s where you come in!
If you’re passionate about challenging the status quo and making a meaningful impact in the financial advice industry, we’d love to meet you!
But first, our values
Kindness - Kindness doesn’t just equal niceness. We listen to understand. We embrace, and encourage healthy debate and diverse perspectives. We approach conflict openly, honestly, and respectfully.
Brilliance - Humility is the skill we’re most proud of and possessing a growth mindset is always top of mind. We take ownership in everything we touch; regularly using our unique superpowers to reach a common goal as a team. We succeed and fail as one.
Grit - When challenges arise, we stay laser focused on achieving our mission and finding a way forward, even when it’s hard. We are nimble and maintain a sense of urgency, swiftly adapting to change and overcoming obstacles.
The opportunity
Altruist is in the midst of an exceptional growth phase and we’re excited to hire a Principal Back End Engineer to join our growing Credit and Lending team. This role requires deep expertise in financial systems, particularly in Margins and risk management, to build and optimize our lending and credit infrastructure.
Your impact
- Analyze and solve complex problems spanning multiple user personas and workflows, with a focus on Margins calculations, risk exposure management, and regulatory compliance
- Design, build, and scale robust systems for high performance and efficiency in margin lending and credit processing
- Deliver RESTful APIs with microservices that support margin trading, collateral management, and margin call workflows
- Integrate data from multiple custodians, aggregating, modeling, and loading the data into a transactional and warehouse system
- Solve complex problems within an event-based environment, ensuring that margin requirement updates are handled in real time
- Work on complex risk analytics and margin-related calculations, ensuring precision and compliance with industry standards
What you bring
- Experience - 8+ years of experience working as a software engineer at a B2B financial services, fintech, or SaaS organization
- 8+ years of building scalable RESTful back-end services using Java and Spring Boot framework
- Proven experience in the fintech industry with a deep understanding of clearing, securities, and asset classes, with a strong emphasis on Margins
- Expertise in designing and implementing Margin-related systems, including experience with Portfolio Margin, Reg-T Margin, and maintenance margin calculations
Ability to implement microservices architecture for backend services to deliver highly distributed and resilient architecture - Strong understanding of design patterns, and implementation of, event-driven architecture and its application to real-time margining processes
- Implement and believe in automated testing like unit/integration test
- Education - Ideally looking for a B.A. / B.S. degree in relevant fields such as Computer Science
- Technical aptitude - You’re technologically savvy and can easily get up to speed on modern tech stacks (Java,Springboot, AWS, SQL)
- Strong grasp of Java, Spring Boot, AWS, and SQL, with expertise in margin calculations
- Deep experience with database technologies (SQL & NoSQL) to efficiently store and retrieve large-scale financial datasets for margin processing
- Strong understanding of caching technologies like Redis
- Experience working with real-time processing frameworks for margin risk assessment and trade settlement processes
- Working knowledge of Docker/Container technologies like Kubernetes or ECS, Terraform, and GitLab
- Proven experience with Scalability, Availability, Reliability, Performance, Resilience, and Observability
- Ownership - The pride you put into every aspect of your work is unparalleled and undeniable
- Superb communication - Intentional dialogue is a superpower. You listen as well as you share your perspective with others.
- Technology Leadership - Serve as a thought leader for backend engineering, ensuring best practices in system design, coding, and performance optimization.
- Mentor and guide junior and mid-level engineers on the team.
- Drive technical decision-making processes and collaborate with product management to align technical goals with business objectives.
- Resilience - We’re inspired by your unwavering determination to achieve success, no matter the adversity you face along the way.
- Assurance - Your confidence is brilliant, yet ego-less. You possess a strong knowledge base, the ability to discover the unknown, and are open to differing perspectives.
- Creative problem solving - Identifying the problem is simply not enough. You’re instinctually creative with your approach in finding solutions to roadblocks.
- Domain Knowledge - Deep understanding of financial industry concepts, particularly broker-dealer operations, clearing and settlement processes, and margins
- Strong experience with Margin Rules (FINRA Rule 4210, SEC Regulations, and risk-based margining frameworks)
- Bonus points if you bring
- Experience building cloud infrastructure with Terraform on AWS
- Experience building automated CI/CD pipelines with Gitlab
- Familiarity with real-time analytics and monitoring tools to track margin call events and risk exposure in trading environments
- Strong understanding of capital and liquidity management in margin lending
San Francisco, CA salary range
$226,000—$283,000 USD
What we bring
Attracting and retaining top-tier talent is a priority. We are proud of the culture we’ve built and are cognizant of the ever-changing professional landscape. Our dynamic offering of perks and benefits are tailored for you to feel your best while doing your best.
- A hybrid work schedule to promote strong, in-person collaboration and a healthy work-life-balance.
- Stunning, amenity-filled office spaces in Culver City, CA, San Francisco, CA, and Dallas, TX. Our offices are intentionally designed for comfort, collaboration, and productivity. Employees get to enjoy free parking and EV charging, cold-brew and kombucha on tap, a fully stocked pantry with snacks, etc.
- Competitive salary and equity packages
- Premium healthcare, dental, and vision insurance plans
- 401k savings plan with matching contributions and immediate vesting
- Flexible PTO so you can satisfy your passions outside of work
- Generous paid parental leave
- Professional growth and development opportunities including an employee mobility program and an annual L&D budget allocation for each employee
- Physical and emotional wellness programs that nurture both your mind and body
- Company perks program (includes discounts on pet insurance, fitness, cell phone plans, entertainment and travel, etc.)
- Financial guidance program (includes counseling on navigating debt, tracking personal spend, saving and planning goals, home-purchasing preparedness, etc.)
Total compensation includes a competitive benefits package along with equity in the form of Stock Options (ISOs). A salary offer will be determined by a number of factors including experience, skill level, internal pay equity, geographic location, and other relevant business considerations. We review all employee pay and compensation programs regularly to ensure fair, equitable, and competitive pay. At Altruist, we are committed to providing fair, equitable, and competitive compensation by leveraging market data to inform our pay bands. Base salaries will be reviewed at regular intervals throughout the year, typically in conjunction with performance review cycles. By evaluating compensation on a regular basis, we are able to reward high performance and ensure all employees have opportunities for growth.
Don’t meet every single requirement? Studies have shown that women and people of color are less likely to apply to jobs unless they meet every single qualification. At Altruist we are dedicated to building a diverse, inclusive, and authentic workplace, so if you’re excited about this role, but your past experience doesn’t align perfectly with every qualification in the job description, we encourage you to apply anyways. You may be just the right candidate for this or other roles.
Top Skills
What We Do
Altruist is on a mission to make independent financial advice better, more affordable, and accessible. We’ve built an all-in-one platform that reduces barriers for financial advisors to deliver great advice. Our software makes advisors more efficient and gives them the freedom to charge less. This means clients pay less, make more, and gain confidence. We want to help tens of millions of people have an amazing experience with their money by supporting thousands of financial professionals.
Why Work With Us
We're helping more people get access to quality financial advice. This means lower costs, no minimums, and full transparency. Our team is passionate about our mission and we love working together. Altruist provides all the usual perks of a tech startup, just no ego or politics. We believe in hiring brilliant, hard-working, nice people (no jerks).
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