Staff Software Engineer

About the role

At Valon, you architect the core infrastructure that transforms regulatory complexity into reliable, automated workflows inside ValonOS. You design systems that ingest, reconcile, and audit financial data with strict correctness and auditability in mind. You own the abstractions that allow our platform to adapt to evolving federal and state rules without disruptive rewrites. You collaborate closely with product and design to translate ambiguous user needs into scalable technical solutions. You mentor other engineers by setting standards for code quality, testing, and operational resilience. You evaluate emerging tools and patterns to future proof our stack in the AI-native operating system era. You ensure that every feature ships with the observability and safety required for regulated finance. You balance ambitious innovation with the discipline demanded by mortgage servicing at scale.

What you'll do

• Investigate ambiguous product requirements and translate them into precise technical specifications for backend services.
• Construct extensible data pipelines that normalize heterogeneous loan-level information while preserving regulatory lineage.
• Implement fault-tolerant distributed systems that maintain consistency across critical workflows involving billions of dollars.
• Profile and refactor performance bottlenecks to improve throughput and latency for high-volume servicing operations.
• Partner with product teams to define measurable success criteria for new features before implementation begins.
• Build developer tools and internal platforms that accelerate feature delivery while enforcing compliance guardrails.
• Design observability and alerting strategies that surface anomalies in transaction processing and customer interactions.
• Evaluate and integrate cloud services on Google Cloud Platform to optimize cost, security, and reliability.
• Lead design reviews that balance tradeoffs between speed of delivery and long-term architectural integrity.
• Mentor engineers on best practices for testing, documentation, and secure handling of sensitive financial data.
• Collaborate with compliance stakeholders to ensure implementations adhere to evolving rules and reporting standards.
• Explore and prototype AI-assisted workflows that leverage structured data within the ValonOS ecosystem.
• Drive the adoption of automation for repetitive operational tasks across engineering and product workflows.
• Define and iterate on release processes that keep deployments frequent, safe, and reversible for mission-critical systems.

Requirements

• Bring 7+ years of software engineering experience building quality software applications at scale.
• Demonstrate strong written and verbal communication skills across cross-functional teams and stakeholders.
• Show proven ability to work cross-functionally to balance product ambitions with technical constraints.
• Highlight experience building scalable systems from scratch with a fast turnaround and high reliability.
• Provide evidence of proficiency in one or more of the following: web application development, mobile application development, building large-scale distributed systems, or infrastructure management.
• Share examples of effective time management that maximized efficiency in a fast-paced startup environment.
• Confirm eligibility to work in the United States without sponsorship for this position.
• Agree to submit to background checks and verification of credentials as part of the hiring process.
• Acknowledge that employment is at-will and contingent upon continued eligibility and business needs.

About the company

Valon is building the AI-native operating system for regulated finance, starting with mortgage servicing. We are a Series C company backed by a16z, transforming industries that others have written off as too complex to innovate. Rather than build on top of broken legacy systems, we took a different approach: we built and operate our own mortgage servicing business managing $110+ billion in loans. This wasn't the end goal, it was how we deeply understood the complexity needed to build software that actually works in regulated industries. The results speak for themselves. We've transformed mortgage servicing from a 0% margin business into 60%+ margins while dramatically improving customer experience. Major enterprise contracts are now deploying across the industry. ValonOS is our unified platform that makes every process structured and programmable and it is perfectly positioned for the AI era. When everything flows through one system with rich data, AI agents don't just automate tasks, they continuously improve entire operations. Mortgage servicing is just the beginning of our vision to transform regulated industries and beyond.

Engineering at Valon

We are building a world-class engineering team to automate one of the most regulated spaces in the financial sector - the mortgage and housing industry. We come from companies like Google, Facebook, Spotify, Oscar Health, and Twilio. You'll join a small, tight-knit group of engineers who are developing flexible backend architecture to accurately handle billions of dollars at scale. In addition, our team of engineers is fulfilling Valon's mission by creating a great user experience to help homeowners manage their mortgages through a platform that delivers new features quickly and with quality. Our tech stack is built on Python, React, Docker, Kubernetes, and Google Cloud Platform.

Our headquarters are in New York City, and this year, we're excited to open a new office in San Francisco. Plus, we fully support remote work.

Benefits

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Compensation: competitive salary with a meaningful stake in the company via equity, and 401k plan. NB: The base salary range reflects multiple levels. We assess level based on a combination of past experience and interview performance

• Health & well-being: we'll invest in your physical and mental well-being with comprehensive medical, dental, & vision benefits
• Commuter benefits: We offer pre-tax deductions for public transportation, rideshare services, and parking expenses to make your commute more affordable and convenient
• Grow together: Company wide orientation for you to successfully onboard and other learning & development opportunities including regular review cycles that feature 360 degree feedback
• Play together: quarterly budgets for team and company outings. Use it for team swag, cooking classes, or team dinners!
• Generous time off: flexible paid time off, sick days, and 11 company holidays
• Baby bonding time!: 12 weeks off for both birthing and non-birthing parents - fully paid so you can focus your energy on your newest addition

Throughout the interview process, please remember that emails will only be from valon.com http://valon.com email addresses. We will never ask for any personally identifiable information during the interview process itself. Please reach out to talent@valon.com if you have any requests to verify the authenticity of an outreach.

Valon is an equal opportunity employer that is committed to diversity and inclusion in the context of the workplace. We prohibit discrimination and harassment of any kind based on race, color, word, word, sex, religion, sexual orientation, national origin, disability, genetic information, pregnancy, or any other protected characteristic as outlined by federal, state, or local laws. Valon makes hiring decisions based solely on qualifications, merit, and business needs at the time.