Sr. Engineering Manager, Backend

About the position

As an Engineering Manager in Broker Dealer, you'll help balance on-time delivery of new B/D features alongside system stability and scale, all while helping mentor and grow a team of talented engineers. Broker Dealer is the core of the Betterment platform. On any given day, we need to securely move millions of dollars through the Betterment system. At the same time, every transaction must flow through a complicated series of risk checks to ensure strict regulatory compliance. Every ounce of efficiency and intelligence we pour into this system translates into more value for our customers. We're looking for an Engineering leader to contribute to answering our most difficult backend scaling, software design, and optimization questions. While we don't expect you to code on a daily basis, we do expect you to quickly familiarize yourself with the tech stack, codebase and specific business domains so that you can better support the team's mission and deliver meaningful business impact. This role will be overseeing a team of individual contributors, and will work closely with other engineering managers in Broker Dealer. This role is based out of our NYC office. Below, we've reflected the base salary range we would offer for this position. Actual salaries may vary depending on factors including but not limited to location, experience, and interview performance. The range listed is just one component of Betterment's total compensation package for employees.

Responsibilities

• Manage a team of 5-8 backend engineers who build innovative trading, money-movement and record keeping technology that powers our investing products.
• Foster career development and align roadmap opportunities with each engineer's growth interests, keeping them technically engaged.
• Cultivate a team culture that values accountability, constructive feedback, and celebrates successes.
• Be a hands-on technical mentor by regularly diving into the codebase, participating in code reviews, partnering with stakeholders to shape solutions, and driving effective technical decision-making.
• Champion maintainability and reliability by advocating for the long-term stability of the technology your team builds.
• Balance the need for speed with the importance of correctness and quality in every project your team undertakes.
• Drive process improvements to ensure day-to-day effectiveness within the team.
• Continuously refine team processes and practices to deliver high-impact, high-quality outcomes for the business.
• Develop deep domain and industry knowledge to be a highly effective partner across internal and external stakeholders.
• Collaborate closely with Product and Engineering leaders, Operations, Legal and Compliance teams to ensure we consistently deliver the right solutions in the right way.

Requirements

• 3+ years of experience in formal Engineering Management of direct reports.
• Experience managing, mentoring, and inspiring talented engineers, guiding them toward excellence in both professional growth and project outcomes.
• 5+ years of experience in building and maintaining backend distributed systems using Java or a similar programming language.
• Comfortable diving into unfamiliar codebases to support and unblock the team.
• A proven track record to rapidly close knowledge gaps, enhancing productivity and establishing trust within the organization.
• A track record of fostering accountability and ownership, motivating teams to take initiative and consistently deliver.
• Experience cultivating high-performing teams that balance speed of execution with the necessary rigor to maintain quality.
• Ability to adjust leadership style to meet the evolving needs of the team and the business.
• Effective collaborator capable of working with other engineering teams, product managers, subject matter experts, non-technical stakeholders and third party vendors to build and ship high quality software.
• Ability to translate business strategy into Engineering initiatives that drive meaningful outcomes.

Benefits

• Competitive equity package
• Health, dental and vision benefits
• 401(k) offering with employer match
• Flexible PTO policy
• Eligible for variable compensation in the form of a discretionary company incentive bonus