About Ladder

We saw a problem within the life insurance industry: getting covered took too long, involved too much paperwork, and required too many in-person meetings with sales agents. Having lost his father at a young age, our CEO, Jamie, was determined to make it easier for people to get the coverage they needed to provide for their families. So, we got to work. We developed a method of real-time underwriting leveraging AI and, in doing so, reduced the months-long process of applying for life insurance to minutes. Our digital experience is quick (instant decisions!), loved by users (check out our Trustpilot or Google reviews) and prolific ($74 billion+ in coverage provided).

About the role

The Ladder engineering team is hiring a Staff Software Engineer to join us in reimagining what life insurance can be. As a Staff Software Engineer on the Platform Team, you will work directly on our underlying infrastructure and services. You will leverage both your software and infrastructure knowledge to build critical services on which customers depend. You will collaborate with cross-functional teams to understand data requirements, deliver efficient and reliable solutions and continuously improve our infrastructure. The ideal candidate brings demonstrated experience in software engineering, leadership maturity and a deep understanding of engineering infrastructure.

Responsibilities

• Solve a variety of technical challenges and drive the development of software to democratize the Life Insurance industry
• Build and maintain cloud infrastructure, developer tooling and data & monitoring systems used by other teams
• Conceive and build tools to improve engineering productivity
• Collaborate closely with team members and product managers
• Quickly build ownership over major parts of our codebase
• Explore data to provide insights into the Ladder product and business
• Continually improve code quality, performance and reliability
• Implement security best practices

Requirements

• 5+ years of software development in one or more programming languages and with data structures/algorithms
• Expertise with a public cloud provider (Preferably GCP) and their infrastructure as a service offering (e.g. GKE, BigQuery, VertexAI)
• Understanding of standard Observability tools such as Grafana, DataDog, Sentry
• Strong problem-solving and analytical skills, with a proven ability to deliver high-quality code in a fast-paced environment
• Bachelor's degree in CS/CE/EE or equivalent practical experience.

Technologies

While it's great if you're already familiar with some of these, we strongly believe general technical proficiency is more important than knowledge of specific technologies. If the role sounds interesting, please apply even if you don't know any of these technologies.

• Backend: Clojure, JVM
• Infrastructure: Kafka, Docker, Kubernetes, Terraform, AWS, GCP
• Data: BigQuery, Tableau, Apache Beam

What we Offer

Whether you work in our beautiful office in Palo Alto or remotely, Ladder is highly collaborative and fun. To support you in your role, we offer fantastic perks and benefits that reflect our mission of care and support, including:

• Excellent medical, dental, and vision coverage | We offer competitive healthcare and dental plans for you and your family.
• Flexible paid time off | Take the time that you need to rest and recharge, including our week-long winter holiday closure.
• Stock options | We offer competitive stock option packages to participate in the success of building Ladder.
• A rewarding 401k match program | We'll match up to 4% of your contributions as you save for your retirement goals.
• Commuter benefits | When you work from the office, you will receive pre-tax benefits for your commute and free parking.
• A stocked, beautiful new office | Located in downtown Palo Alto, our office was specifically designed to accommodate all working styles. We've invested in technology to support our hybrid team, plus we provide office snacks and catered lunches so that team members can work well and have fun together.
• Paid parental leave |We think it's crucial that new parents have time to adjust to their new lives without worrying about work, so we provide all parents inclusive of birthing, adoption, or fostering ten weeks of paid baby bonding.
• Work-from-home flexibility and support | We recognize that everyone's homelife is different and support remote and hybrid work. Upon joining, we provide a one-time $500 remote office stipend for all team members and then a monthly $150 stipend to cover WFH costs such as the internet.
• Fun company-wide events | Whether we work locally or remotely, we genuinely enjoy spending time together. That's why we plan fun virtual and in-person events to let loose and laugh.

The base pay range targeted for this position is $161,500 - $210,000 per year. Base pay is determined by market location and may vary depending on job-related knowledge, skills, and experience. This role is eligible for equity and benefits as shared above.

Ladder is building a diverse team of talented and enthusiastic people. We are an equal opportunity workplace. At Ladder, differences are celebrated and supported to benefit our people, product, and community. Let us know why you're interested in this position and what unique contributions you can make to the Ladder team. We look forward to hearing from you.