Altruist
Staff Back End Engineer, Data
Los Angeles, CA · Staff+
Stay score
odds of building a lasting career here
Sponsors, but it's cap-subject — you still face the weighted lottery (~61% per draw at Level IV). Good if you win; have a cap-exempt backup on your list.
Lottery odds assume a STEM candidate.
Personalize to your clock →H-1B wage level
the lottery is wage-weighted — each level is one more entry
$8,051 more — $189,051 — moves this role to Level IV and 4 lottery entries. That figure is inside the range the employer already advertised.
Based on the DOL prevailing wage for this occupation and worksite, a base salary of $189,051 would place this position at wage Level IV. That figure is within the posted range, and I'd like to target it. This role classifies under "Software Developers" for prevailing-wage purposes.
DOL prevailing wage, 2026-27 wage year · Software Developers (15-1252) · Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA. Wage level is derived by USCIS from the offered wage, occupation and worksite; the occupation shown is inferred from the job title.
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from this employer's Department of Labor filings
Files H-1B transfers
Sourced from Department of Labor LCA, PERM and prevailing-wage disclosure data. Employer matching is by name, so figures may be split across an employer's legal entities. Absence of a filing means none appears in our copy of the data, not that none exists.
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About the role
- We're looking for an AI-native Staff Software Engineer who combines creative thinking with business acumen.
Responsibilities
- Design and build high-performance systems that manage the full lifecycle of financial data, from ingestion and transformation to serving and consumption.
- Create shared frameworks and platforms that establish AI as a core company capability, including reliable ways for AI applications and agents to access trusted data.
- Identify opportunities to improve advisor experiences and internal workflows with AI. Partner with product and engineering teams to define success, validate approaches, and deliver measurable results.
- Lead initiatives spanning multiple teams, clarify technical tradeoffs and dependencies, and guide delivery from initial design through rollout and ongoing operation.
- Mentor engineers, lead design reviews, and raise engineering standards through clear technical guidance and hands-on contributions.
- You'll shape the technical direction of our data and AI platforms and stay hands-on in building systems that help financial advisors deliver exceptional client service.
- You'll own outcomes from design through production, balancing delivery speed with reliability, security, and cost.
- Partner with product and engineering teams to define success, validate approaches, and deliver measurable results.
- Partner with Security to protect sensitive data and make access controls part of system design.
- Experience setting architectural direction, writing clear technical proposals, building alignment across teams, and mentoring engineers without relying on formal authority.
Requirements
- 8+ years of software engineering experience, with a track record of leading complex platform or distributed systems initiatives and delivering results across teams.
- Strong proficiency in Python or Java, strong SQL skills, and the ability to design, build, debug, and operate production systems.
- Data platforms - Deep experience with databases, data warehouses, ETL or ELT pipelines, and mature data processes at scale.
- Experience with large-scale offline processing and batch pipelines using Spark or similar frameworks, including failure recovery and performance tuning.
- Experience designing and operating cloud services, especially on AWS, with working knowledge of Kubernetes, deployment practices, and observability.
- Proficiency with AI-assisted development tools such as Cursor or Claude Code, sound judgment about their limitations, and the ability to help others use them effectively.
- You can identify practical applications of AI and evaluate whether they solve the business problem.
- Deep experience with databases, data warehouses, ETL or ELT pipelines, and mature data processes at scale.
- Experience - 8+ years of software engineering experience, with a track record of leading complex platform or distributed systems initiatives and delivering results across teams.
- Hands-on engineering - Strong proficiency in Python or Java, strong SQL skills, and the ability to design, build, debug, and operate production systems.
- Data platforms - Deep experience with databases, data warehouses, ETL or ELT pipelines, and mature data processes at scale. You understand data modeling, query optimization, and the tradeoffs between batch and real-time processing.
- Distributed processing - Experience with large-scale offline processing and batch pipelines using Spark or similar frameworks, including failure recovery and performance tuning.
- Cloud infrastructure - Experience designing and operating cloud services, especially on AWS, with working knowledge of Kubernetes, deployment practices, and observability.
- AI fluency - Proficiency with AI-assisted development tools such as Cursor or Claude Code, sound judgment about their limitations, and the ability to help others use them effectively. You can identify practical applications of AI and evaluate whether they solve the business problem.
- Technical leadership - Experience setting architectural direction, writing clear technical proposals, building alignment across teams, and mentoring engineers without relying on formal authority.
- Business judgment - The ability to turn ambiguous needs into clear priorities, make pragmatic build-versus-buy decisions, and balance immediate delivery with long-term platform needs.
- Ownership - You take responsibility for business outcomes, carry changes through production, and support the systems you build.
- Communication - You listen carefully, explain complex ideas clearly, and work effectively with technical and nontechnical partners.
Nice to have
- Preferred experience
Compensation
- Los Angeles, CA salary range
Company info
- We're looking for exceptional talent to help us achieve our mission of making financial advice better, more affordable, and accessible to all.
- But first, our values Kindness - Kindness doesn't just equal niceness.
- Grit - When challenges arise, we stay laser focused on achieving our mission and finding a way forward, even when it's hard.
- Establish standards for data quality, observability, and recovery. Partner with Security to protect sensitive data and make access controls part of system design.
This listing is sourced directly from Altruist's careers page and normalized into a canonical job model.